almost equally sure to get into some difficulty from which
escape was not always easy. Looking over the whole ground for a fresh
start in business, it seemed to me that Maine was the most favorable
place. Whenever I had been there I had done well; it was one of the very
few States I had lived in where I had not been in jail or in prison; nor
had I been married there, though the Biddeford widow did her best to wed
me, and it is not her fault that she did not succeed in doing it.

To Maine, then, I went, settling down in Augusta, and remaining there
four months, during which time I had as much as I could possibly attend
to, and laid by a very considerable sum of money. While I was there
I heard the most unfavorable reports with regard to the health of my
eldest son Henry. Prison life at Trenton had broken him down in body
as well as in spirit, and he had been ill, some of the time seriously,
nearly all the time since he went to Unadilla. The fact that he was
entirely innocent of the offence for which he was imprisoned, preyed
upon his mind, and with the worst results. As these stories reached me
from week to week, I became anxious and even alarmed about him, and at
last I left my lucrative business in Augusta and went to New York. I
could not well go to Unadilla to visit Henry without seeing his mother,
whom I had no desire to see; so I sent for him to come to me in the
city if was able to do so. I knew that if medicine or medical attendance
would benefit him, I should be able to help him.

In a few days he came to me in a most deplorable physical condition. He
was a mere wreck of his former self. Almost immediately he began to talk
about the attempt to abduct the boy from Oxford; how innocent he was in
the matter, and how terribly he had suffered merely because he happened
to be with me when I rashly endeavored to kidnap the lad. All this went
through me like a sharp sword. It seemed as if I was the cause, not only
of great unhappiness to myself, but of pain and misery to all who were
associated or brought in contact with me. For this poor boy, who had
endured and suffered so much on my account, I could not do enough. My
means and time must now be devoted to his recovery, if recovery, was
possible.

He was weak, but was still able to walk about, and he enjoyed riding
very much. I kept him with me in the city a week or two, taking daily
rides to the Park and into the country, and when he felt like going out
in the even