After
all, Colonel Howard is a gentleman when you do not put him in a passion,
and, I believe, a thoroughly honest man; and Cecilia even loves him. But
a man who is driven from his country, in his sixtieth year, with the
loss of near half his fortune, is not apt to canonize those who compel
the change.
"It seems that when the Howards lived on this island, a hundred years
ago, they dwelt in the county of Northumberland. Hither, then, he
brought us, when political events, and his dread of becoming the uncle
to a rebel, induced him to abandon America, as he says, forever. We have
been here now three months, and for two-thirds of that time we lived in
tolerable comfort; but latterly, the papers have announced the arrival
of the ship and your schooner in France; and from that moment as strict
a watch has been kept over us as if we had meditated a renewal of the
Carolina flight. The colonel, on his arrival here, hired an old
building, that is, part house, part abbey, part castle, and all prison;
because it is said to have once belonged to an ancestor of his. In this
delightful dwelling there are many cages that will secure more uneasy
birds than we are. About a fortnight ago an alarm was given in a
neighboring village which is situated on the shore, that two American
vessels, answering your description, had been seen hovering along the
coast; and, as people in this quarter dream of nothing but that terrible
fellow, Paul Jones, it was said that he was on board one of them.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94