made
her more happy than she has been for these two and forty years
she has been in our family.' And Miss Nessy tells him, 'Poor
Birket, the most faithful and worthiest of servants, desires
me to tell you that she almost dies with joy at the thought of
your safe arrival in England. What agony, my dear boy, has she
felt on your account! her affection for you knows no bounds,
and her misery has indeed been extreme; but she still lives to
bless your virtues.'

The poor prisoner thus replies, from his Majesty's ship _Hector_, to his
'beloved sisters all':--

'This day I had the supreme happiness of your long-expected
letters, and I am not able to express the pleasure and joy
they afforded me; at the sight of them my spirits, low and
dejected, were at once exhilarated; my heart had long and
greatly suffered from my impatience to hear of those most dear
to me, and was tossed and tormented by the storms of fearful
conjecture--but they are now subsided, and my bosom has at
length attained that long-lost serenity and calmness it once
enjoyed: for you may believe me when I say it never yet has
suffered any disquiet from my own misfortunes, but from a
truly anxious solicitude for, and desire to hear of, your
welfare. God be thanked, you still entertain such an opinion
of me as I will flatter myself I have deserved; but why do I
say so? can I make myself too worthy the affectionate praises
of such amiable sisters? Oh! my Nessy, it grieves me to think
I must be under the necessity, however heart-breaking to
myself, of desiring you will relinquish your most affectionate
design of coming to see me; it is too long and tedious a
journey, and even on your arrival, you would not be allowed
the wished-for happiness, both to you and myself, of seeing,
much less conversing with, your unfortunate brother: the rules
of the service are so strict, that prisoners are not
permitted to have any communication with female relations;
thus even the sight of, and conversation with, so truly
affectionate a sister is for the present denied me! The
happiness of such an interview let us defer till a time
(which, please God, will arrive) when it can be enjoyed with
more freedom, and unobserved by the gazing eyes of an
inquisitive world, which in my present place of confin