“You mention that some of the Ralston family are in Boston on a visit, and that Mr. Codman is attached to Eliza.  Once in my life, you know, if you had told me this and I had been a very bloody-minded young man, who knows but Mr. Codman might have been challenged.  But I suppose he takes advantage of my being in England.  If it is as you say, I am very happy to hear it, for Elizabeth is a girl whom I very much esteem, and there is no doubt that she will make an excellent wife.”

In a letter from his mother of July 6, 1818, she thus reassures him:  “Mr. Codman is married.  He married a Miss Wheeler, of Newburyport, so you will have no need of challenging him on account of Eliza Ralston.”

In a postscript to the letter of November 1, Morse adds:—­

“I have just read the political parts of this letter to my good friend Mr. A——­n, and he not only approves of the sentiments in it, but pays me a compliment by saying that I have expressed the truth and nothing but the truth in a very clear and proper manner, and hopes it may do good.”

Among young Morse’s friends in England at that time was Henry Thornton, philanthropist and member of Parliament.  In a letter to his parents of January 1, 1813, he says:—­

“Last Thursday week I received a very polite invitation from Henry Thornton, Esq., to dine with him, which I accepted.  I had no introduction to him, but, hearing that your son was in the country, he found me out and has shown me every attention.  He is a very pleasant, sensible man, but his character is too well known to you to need any eulogium from me.

“At his table was a son of Mr. Stephen, who was the author of the odious Orders in Council.  Mr. Thornton asked me at table if I thought that, if the Orders in Council had been repealed a month or two sooner, it would not have prevented the war.  I told him I thought it would, at which he was much pleased, and, turning to Mr. Stephen, he said:  ’Do you hear that, Mr. Stephen?  I always told you so.’

“Last Wednesday I dined at Mr. Wilberforce’s.  I was extremely pleased with him.  At his house I met Mr. Grant and Mr. Thornton, members of Parliament.  In the course of conversation they introduced America, and Mr. Wilberforce regretted the war extremely; he said it was like two of the same family quarrelling; that he thought it a judgment on this country for its wickedness, and that they had been justly punished for their arrogance and insolence at sea, as well as the Americans for their vaunting on land.

“As Mr. Thornton was going he invited me to spend a day or two at his seat at Clapham, a few miles out of town.  I accordingly went and was very civilly treated.  The reserve which I mentioned in a former letter was evident, however, here, and I felt a degree of embarrassment arising from it which I never felt in America.  The second day I was a little more at my ease.

“At dinner were the two sons of the Mr. Grant I mentioned above.  They are, perhaps, the most promising young men in the country, and you may possibly one day hear of them as at the head of the nation. [One of these young men was afterwards raised to the peerage as Lord Glenelg.]