On the whole, the letter of Lucy gave me a great and soothing pleasure.  I came to a resolution to answer it, and to send that answer back by the pilot.  I had no owner to feel any solicitude in the movements of the ship; had no longer a sister to care for myself; and to whom else could my last words on quitting the land be so appropriately addressed, as to this constant and true-hearted friend?  That much, at least, I could presume to call Lucy, and even to that I clung as the ship-wrecked mariner clings to the last plank that floats.

The fourth letter, to my astonishment, bore the signature of John Wallingford, and the date of Albany.  He had got this far on his way home, and written me a line to let me know the fact.  I copy his epistle in full, viz:—­

  “Dear Miles,

“Here I am, and sorry am I to see, by the papers, there you are still.  Recollect, my dear boy, that sugars will melt.  It is time you were off:  this is said for your own sake, and not for mine, as you well know I am amply secured.  Still, the markets may fall, and he who is first in them can wait for a rise, while he who is last must take what offers.”

“Above all, Miles, do not take it into your head to alter your will.  Things are now arranged between us precisely as they should be, and I hate changes.  I am your heir, and you are mine.  Your counsel, Richard Harrison, Esquire, is a man of great respectability, and a perfectly safe repository of such a secret.  I leave many of my papers in his hands, and he has now been my counsel ever since I had need of one; and treads so hard on Hamilton’s heels, that the last, sometimes feels his toes.  This is as counsel, however, and not as an advocate.

  “Adieu, my dear boy:  we are both Wallingfords, and the nearest of kin to
  each other, of the name.  Clawbonny will be safe with either of us, and
  either of us will be safe with Clawbonny.

  “Your affectionate cousin,
  John Wallingford.”

I confess that all this anxiety about Clawbonny began to give me some uneasiness, and that I often wished, I had been less ambitious, or less hasty would be the better word, and had been content to go to sea again, in my simple character of ship-master, and ship-owner; leaving the merchant to those who better understood the vocation.

I now went to the boat, and to the ship.  Marble was all ready for me, and in ten minutes the anchor was clear of the bottom; in ten more, it was catted and fished, and the Dawn was beating down the bay, on a young flood, with a light breeze, at south-west.  The pilot being in charge, I had nothing to do but go below, and write my letters.  I answered everybody, even to the Secretary of State, who, at that time, was no less a man than James Madison.  To him, however, I had nothing to say, but to acknowledge the receipt of the dispatches, and to promise to deliver them.  My letter to Mr. Hardinge, was, I hope,