have prevented, continues he, that brute of a parent from facrificing his daughter to the arms of Will Stanley." -And what bufinefs- the father was beginning to exclaim with great earnestnefs and vociferation. Sir," fays the fon, with great fedatenefs, I begged

you to hear me; if you refufe it, I ⚫ have done.' The father, with fome difficulty, bridled both his paffion and his voice; and the youth proceeded— There is not a thought in my heart that I would condefcend to difguife ⚫ even to you: I do not love the girl; I have already been at the pains of conquering the first attacks of that paffion. As I do not love her, I am an unprejudiced judge in my own caufe; and I confefs to you, Sir, that I am fo much convinced of the fuperiority of the qualifications the pof⚫feffes to the advantages of fortune, that,

if I can prevail with you to think in the fame manner, I will marry her: without your approbation, I will never do either that, or any thing of confequence.'

Thee art mad and bewitched, lad, ⚫ for certain!' exclaims the father; they have put love-powder in thy punch, or • fome d-d trick o'that fashions! • Marry a draggle-tail'd wench, without a half penny! Why, thee mayft mairy a dutchefs, boy! Thee must go to England, child, to look after a wife for thee; there's no body upon the worthy to untie thy cravat.

fpirit of this paffion; thou difdaineft • to employ a power thou hast to make me wretched! But know, I must be more miferable for that thou difdainest to wish me fo. In this only thou art ⚫ deceived, that thou fuppofeft love may be conquered. I know it not but for thee; but, whilst thou art it's object, ⚫ coldness were as impoffible as incon• ftancy!'

After fome more foliloquies of this kind, fhe threw herfelf upon the bed, refufed comfort of all kinds, even food, and pined in two days into a very dan- . gerous diforder.

The phyfician of the place (a man who had been an apothecary in London, till his idleness and debauchery, added to his ignorance, had ruined him there; and who, now in a new world, and with a new character, dispatched more to the fhades than any ten of his former trade in England) did not find himself able to difcover, by the symptoms, what the difeafe of the patient was; but every body about her joining in affuring him it was owing to love, he acquiefced in it. He very gravely told the father, that Galenical medicines would be of no efficacy in this cafe; for that Hippocrates, the father of phyfick, had left it among his writings, thất

• Amor nullis eft medicabilis berbis ;' ́and therefore chymical remedies were the only ones that could be proper, as being principally drawn from the mineral king. dom.

The father could not but fubmit to the inion of a man fo well acquainted with Hippocrates; and the daughter, though the faw fhe was doomed a facrifice to the ignorance of her doctor, was indifferent enough about life to acquire the character of a fweet-tempered, tractable girl, that took her medicines as reguJarly as if they had been fweetmeats.

The only care of Mifs July was, indeed, that Mr. Edwards fhould not know of her illness. She was fenfible it would have the appearance of an artifice, which her foul was very much above; and though in fo talking a place as that where the refided, where fo little new presented itfelf at any time that a cut-finger was matter of news for a fortnight, it was impoffible, for all her cautions and entreaties, absolutely to prevent it s reaching his ears: he contrived to throw people continually in his way, who were in

ftructed to tell him they had just met her in the fields, or drank tea with her at home; fo that, notwithstanding all the harangues of the doctor, he became convinced her indifpofition was not of confequence enough to make either him or herself uneasy.

CHAP. V.

A TREATY SET ON FOOT BETWEEN THE FATHER OF OUR HERO AND UNCLE JEREMY. A VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.

PEOPL

EOPLE who have but few relations, generally take sufficient pains, unless they are poor ones, to find thei

out.

It was now many years fince the father of our hero had traced back his genealogy fo far as to know that he had a relation, as he called him, on the mother's fide, fomewhere in London. He had been at the pains of enquiring, by means of the matters of feveral veffels that traded backwards and forwards from their port to that of London, fo far as to fatisfy himself of this gentleman's exiftence and his circumitances, and had waited with chriftian patience the periods of many voyages for an explana. tion. He no fooner found, however, that he was in being, and was a close, rich fellow, than he wrote to him, with all the politeness a West Indian education could infpire, to give him an account of his family and affa rs, and entreat an acquaintance with, the only relation he had in the world.

Mr. Jeremy Edward was as flow and as cautious in all his motions as the gentleman who had claimed kinnred with him. It was feven months before he difcovered whether the letter he received was of confequence enough to pay it's poltage, and an equal period elapfed during the neceffary enquiries, as to the fituation and connections of the writer of it: circumftances which the judicious Jeremy never took a man's own word about.

At the end of this time, it appearing that Mr. Thomas Edwards had a fortune; that there was but one life between that fortune and the faid Jeremy; and that a life, which, if he could get the owner of it to London, would not be worth above a year and a half's purchafe; he wrote to his dear brother, as

he

he called him, to inform him of the joy it had been to him to receive his letter; adding, that himfelf was declining apace; and that he thought Providence had, in this occurrence, pointed out to him whom he should make the heir of the little Heaven had bleffed him with; that he was rejoiced to hear how difcreet and good a lad his nephew was; and that, as he never yet had known fo near a relation, he extremely wifhed to have the happiness of feeing him before he died concluding that, as London was the proper place for the education of a young man who was to make a figure in the world, he was not without hope of fometime giving him his bleffing

there.

:

Uncle Jeremy was, from the receipt of this letter, looked on as the patron of the rifing branch of the family. The young gentleman was every where called his heir; and, as Fame never fails to expand her tidings in proportion to the fpace the carries them through, this certainty was, on that fide the water, never calculated at lefs than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds addition to his fortune.

In this fituation were the affairs of the family, when the young gentleman had propofed to his father the taking Mifs Wentworth for a wife. Mr. Edwards's own circumstances were vastly fuperior to thofe of that lady's parent; but the addition expected from the uncle fet the youth fo infinitely above the level with fuch a family, that his father would have thought it as proper for a prince of the blood to marry a fcullion, as for his fon, and the heir of his brother, to condefcend to look upon the daughter of a poor planter.

His utter difapprobation had put a final period to the lover's intentions; and the lady had reconciled it to herself to lose him, when our hero, having employed a young negro wench of the next plantation on fome trivial meffage, and, almoft accidentally, afked her at her return if he had feen her young mistress that day, found, by that unguarded innocent, that the doctor had given her over two days, and that his ignorance of her fituation had been owing to her care of having it kept from him.

Young Edwards had a heart too fenfible and too generous not to feel the prefent circumitance as it ought, as well as

me.

too open and ingenuous to conceal it's fentiments. He ran immediately to his father This generous young crea ture, Sir, is dying for me, and has induftrioufly concealed it from my knowledge: if you have compaffion or humanity-nay, if you have but juftice-do not make me acceffary to the death of one who loves me, and who, if you would judge difinterestedly, you would own more than deferves You fay I muft not marry her, because my fortune is immenfely great, and hers is nothing; it is therefore, Sir, that I fhould marry her: lefs than what I fhall have would be more than enough; and what could I, what ought my father to wish more, than to confer an obligation on one who has it in her power to return it a thoufand fold, to make me happy for ever? Can I fuffer her to die in mifery, who wishes nothing but to make me live in happiness?'

Why,' replies the father, as for your marrying her, George, for the matter of that, I fhould not be fo much against it if I was fure as how fhe would die for certain within this day or two; for, fo far as that goes, I would not with her to die miferable, as vou fay, no more nor yourfelf: but as for that doctor, you know ever fince a told me as how Dobbin was only • lazy, and the poor thing died in the mill but three quarters of an hour afterwards, I'm refolved never to take his word about any foul's life or death again. Befides all that, women are deceitful, as every body knows; and, mahap, this is no more nor a trick; and fhe'll no fooner a got you fast, but fhe'll jump out a bed, and tell you as how he'll live to make your heart 'ache.'

Sir, replies the youth, with great earneftnefs, I have promifed to obey you; you cannot afk more of me; but I will not hear an unhappy creature, one whom I have made fo, treated with this cruelty, while fhe is dying for me.' He was going on with great impetoolity, when the old man flopped him, by telling him they had things of more confequence to talk about. Captain Juvas, fays he, fails o' Teeiday: you know well enough how much your uncle Jeremy has longed to fee you; now's your time to go. There's noC

thing

thing in the varial world fo good as a voyage to England to cure a love-fit: belides, if you defign to make a man of yourfelf, now's your time, while, you are young, to do it.'

The youth itarted at the propofal; but the father infifted on his compliance. His unwillingness, the fource of which it was very easy to fee, made the father the more refolute. An implicit obedience to a parent's authority was one of the fixed principles in the mind of this generous youth: inconfequence of this, he fubmitted to the cruel fentence that was now paffed upon him; and, from mere compaffion both to himself and the lady, avoided fo tender and dittressful a fcene as taking leave of her. Exclufively of what himfelf must have felt from it, he confidered that the shock might deftroy a perfon of her weak frame in her prefent fituation; and, as the fentence of his father was irrevocable, that it could produce no good to either.

CHAP. VI.

OUR HERO JOINED BY A COMPANION WHOM HE NEITHER KNEW NOR EXPECTED.

unhappy July, had a brother, a man of great worth and honour, who had ferved in the army many years. He had distinguished himself at the affair of Dettingen, and had been found among the dead on the fatal field of PrestonPans; not fallen, like the ftragglers of that unhappy day, alone, and with his heels nearest the fcene of action, but, like the Roman Catiline, longe a fuis, far from his own people, covered over with wounds, and in the midft of the flaughtered ranks of the enemy.

Deeds worthy of reward often meet with it, while they feem to difdain it. An officer among our own butchered troops might poffibly have been left dying many days with lefs hurts; but the commander of the oppofite handful, whofe heart, however unjustifiable his enterprize had been, was full of honour and compaffion, no fooner faw, among the largest flaughter of his friends, an enemy yet breathing under fuch accumulated means of death, ti an he ordered his own furgeons to attend him: m fine, he faw

him cured; offered him his own conditions, if he would engage in his caufe; and, when he found his loyalty to his fovereign unfhaken, gave him his liberty; telling him— You are my though you will not be my friend. I think myfelf happy in having preferved a life fo valuable, though it be to fight against me.' The prisoner took his leave with a heart, though unalterable in it's principles, yet pierced with the fenfe of his preferver's virtues. He determined to change the scene of his fervices, that he might not lift his arm immediately against the perfon to whom he owed his life. He quitted the regiment he was at that time in; and, turning his whole fortune into cash, raised a company at his own expence, and embarked with them on the American fervice.

Mr. Wentworth was lefs fuccefsful in this generous attempt than he deferved to have been: he had the misfortune to

find a peace proclaimed before he came to the deftined scene of his operations. He difbanded his company; and, having no business in England but the foliciting fome employ as a reward for his intended fervices, he trusted that to his friends, while he remained in Nova Scotia. After receiving repeated refufals, he retired to his brother's plantation, out of humour with the world, and determined to have no farther communication with it.

The brave and virtuous naturally love those who are like themselves. This gentleman, though he had lived now three months with his brother, had shut himself up with a few favourite books, and had inade a point of it to be private and fecret. His brother was not qualified to profit by, or join in, his converfation: they met only at meals, and only fuch of thofe as no other company were prefent at; and it was fcarcely known that there was any body befide the ufual family in the house by any of the ifland.

Though Mr. Wentworth had despised and avoided the company of his brother, it was much otherwife, however, with regard to his charming daughter. Juliet had been the companion of many of his retired hours. She had become enamoured of his virtues, even from his own a odel accounts of the incidents under which they had come in action

and,