to-day. To-morrow or next day the Colonel will be here. If Lord Sandwich, as I have reason to expect, has influenced him to refuse me leave of absence, I will most certainly sell out directly, which I have an opportunity to do. At any rate, I will be with you in a few days. If I come without a commission you must not be angry. To find you both displeased and ill, will be too much for your poor H. For my sake, be careful. Dr. I insist upon your not having any longer. His humanity are upon a par. must contrive some method for me to see you. How can love like mine support existence if you should be ill, and I should not be permitted to see you. But I can neither think nor write any more.

experience and

Positively you

Hackman then sold out and left at once for England, arriving in London in the beginning of May 1777.

PART III

IN LONDON

To MISS REAY,

CANNON COFFEE HOUSE, May 4, 1777.

DID you get the incoherent scrawls I wrote you yesterday and the day before? Yours I have this instant read and wept over. Your feeble writing speaks you weaker than you own. Heavens, am I come hither only to find I must not see you! Better I had staid in Ireland. Yet, do I now breathe the air with you. Nothing but your note last night could have prevented me, at all hazards, from forcing my way to your bedside. In vain did I watch the windows afterwards, to gather information from the passing lights whether you were better or worse. For God of heaven's sake send me an answer to this! To MR. HACKMAN.

ADMIRALTY, May 4, 1774.-3 o'clock. My dear mistress bids me write this from

her mouth:

"These are the last words I speak. My last thoughts will be upon you, my dearest, dear H. In the next world we shall meet. Live and cherish my memory. Accept the contents of this little box. Be a friend to my children. My little girl."

TO THE SAME.

ADMIRALTY, May 4, 1777.—5 o'clock.

MY DEAR SOUL,

At the hazard of my life I write this to tell you Heaven has spared my life to your prayers. The unfinished note, which my hasty maid-I cannot go on.

"Sir,

My dear Mistress bids me say, Sir, that her disorder has taken a turn within this hour, and the physicians have pronounced her out of all danger. Honoured Sir, I humbly crave your pardon for sending away my scribble just now, which I am afraid has made you uneasy; but indeed, Honoured Sir, I thought it was all over with my poor dear mistress; and then, I am sure I should have broke my heart. For, to be sure, no servant ever had a better, nor a kinder mistress. Sir, I presume to see your honour

to-morrow. My mistress fainted away as she began this, but is now better. "Admiralty.—6 o'clock."

To MISS REAY.

CANNON COFFEE HOUSE, June 27, 1777. 5 o'clock.

As I want both appetite and spirit to touch my dinner, though it has been standing before me these ten minutes, I can claim no merit in writing to you. May you enjoy that pleasure in your delightful situation on the banks of the Thames, which no situation, no thing upon earth, can in your absence afford me!

Do you ask me what has lowered my spirits to-day? I will tell you. Do not be angry, but I have been to see the last of poor Dodd, Yes, "poor Dodd!" though his life was justly forfeited to the laws of his country. The scene was affecting-it was the first of the kind I had ever seen, and shall certainly be the last. Though, had I been in England when Peter Tolosa was deservedly executed in February, for killing Duarzey, a young French woman with whom he lived, I believe I should have attended

the last moments of a man, who could murder the object of his love. For the credit of my country, this man (does he deserve the name of man ?) was a Spaniard.

Do not think I want tenderness because I was present this morning. Will you allow yourself to want tenderness, because you have been present at Lear's madness, or Ophelia's ? Certainly not. Believe me (you will believe me, I am sure) I do not make a profession of it, like George S. Your H. is neither artiste nor amateur, nor do I, like Paoli's friend and historian, hire a window by the year, which looks upon the Grassmarket at Edinburgh.

Raynal's book you have read, and admire. For its humanity it merits admiration. The Abbé does not countenance an attendant on scenes at this sort by his writings, but he does by his conduct. And I would sooner take Practice's word than Theory's. Upon my honour Raynal and Charles Fox, notwithstanding the rain, beheld the whole from the top of an unfinished house, close by the stand in which I had a place.

However meanly Dodd behaved formerly, in throwing the blame of his application to