d a Mr. Norgate of Norfolk--not far from Holkham, the seat of Mr.
Coke afterward Earl of Leicester--was also a lodger. Mr. Norgate invited
Hunter down to his father's, and they went over to Holkham together. And
there they met the Duke of Sussex, a great friend of Mr. Coke, both
being Liberals and Oppositionists. His Royal Highness took a great fancy
to Hunter, got him to sit to Chester Harding for his picture, gave him a
gold watch and lots of agricultural tools to subdue the Indians with,
and stuck to him through thick and thin, till I found it necessary to
tear off the fellow's mask.

On separating from me, before I had got possession of the facts which
soon after appeared in the "London Magazine," he wrote in my album the
following sententious and pithy apothegm, which, of course, only went to
show the marvellous power of adaptation to circumstances which would
naturally characterize the man, if his story were true. It was in this
way his dupes reasoned. If he sealed a letter with a wafer, and sent it
through the penny-post to a woman of rank, that proved his neglected
education or a natural disregard of polite usage, and of course that he
had been carried off in childhood by the Indians, and knew not where to
look for father or mother, sister or brother,--while, on the contrary,
if he used wax, and set the seal upon it which had been given to him by
the Duke of Sussex, that showed, of course, the sagacity and readiness
of adaptation which ought to characterize the hero of Hunter's
narrative. In short, he was another Princess Caraboo, or young
Chatterton, or Cagliostro, or Count Eliorich, all of whom were made
great impostors by the help of others, the over-credulous and the
over-confident in themselves.

"He who would do great actions," writes our enormous bug-a-boo,
"must learn to _empoly_ his powers to the least possible loss.
The possession of brilliant and extraordinary talents" (this
was probably meant for me, as he had been trying to prevail
upon my "brilliant and extraordinary talents" to return to
America with him, and go among the savages about the
neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, and there establish a
confederacy of our own) "is not always the most valuable to its
possessor. Moderate talents, properly directed, will enable one
to do a great deal; and the most distinguished gifts of nature
may be thrown away by an unskilful application of them.