t with pleasure, and add my very
sincere wish that all your hopes may be realized.

"Dr. Morse's son is considered a young man of very promising talents by
Mr. Allston and Mr. West and by those who have seen his paintings. We
have seen him and think his modesty and apparent amiableness promise as
much happiness to his friends as his talents may procure distinction for
himself. He is peculiarly fortunate, not only in having Mr. Allston for
an adviser and friend, but in his companion in painting, Mr. Leslie, a
young man from Philadelphia highly recommended by my uncle there, and
whose extreme diffidence adds to the most promising talents the patient
industry and desire of improvement which are necessary to bring them to
perfection. They have been drawing each other's pictures. Mr. Leslie is
in the Spanish costume and Mr. Morse in Highland dress. They are in an
unfinished state, but striking resemblances."

This Highland lad, I hope, my dear friend, you will see, and in due time
be again blessed with the interesting original.

At this time the good father was sore distressed financially. He was
generous to a fault and had, by endorsing notes and giving to others,
crippled his own means. He says in a letter to his son dated March 21,
1812:--

"The Parkman case remains yet undecided and I know not that it ever will
be. There is a strange mystery surrounding the business which I am not
able to unravel. The court is now in session in Boston which is expected
to decide the case. In a few days we shall be able to determine what we
have to expect from this case. If we lose it, your mother and I have made
up our minds to sit down contented with the loss. I trust we shall be
enabled to pay our honest debts without it and to support ourselves.

"As to you and your brothers, I trust, with your education, you will be
able to maintain yourselves, and your parents, too, should they need it
in their old age. Probably this necessity laid on you for exertion,
industry, and economy in early life will be better for you in the end
than to be supported by your parents. In nine cases out of ten those who
begin the world with nothing are richer and more useful men in life than
those who inherit a large estate....

"We have just heard from your brothers, who are well and in fine spirits.
Edwards writes that he thinks of staying in New Haven another year and of
pursuing _general science_, and afterwards of purchasing a plantation and
becomin