“’Tis almost four months since you left your native land, and embarked upon the mighty waters, in quest of a foreign country.  Although I have not particularly written to you since, yet you may be assured you have constantly been upon my heart and mind.

“It is a very difficult task, my dear son, for a tender parent to bring her mind to part with a child of your years going to a distant land; nor could I have acquiesced in such a separation under any other care than that of the most excellent parent and guardian who accompanied you.  You have arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages you will be likely to have, if you do but properly attend to them.  They are talents put into your hands, of which an account will be required of you hereafter; and being possessed of one, two, or four, see to it that you double your numbers.

“The most amiable and most useful disposition in a young mind is diffidence of itself; and this should lead you to seek advice and instruction from him who is your natural guardian, and will always counsel and direct you in the best manner, both for your present and future happiness.  You are in possession of a natural good understanding, and of spirits unbroken by adversity and untamed with care.  Improve your understanding by acquiring useful knowledge and virtue, such as will render you an ornament to society, an honor to your country, and a blessing to your parents.  Great learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.  Adhere to those religious sentiments and principles which were early instilled into your mind, and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.

“Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare.  His care and attention to you render many things unnecessary for me to write, which I might otherwise do; but the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require line upon line and precept upon precept, and, when enforced by the joint efforts of both parents, will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for, dear as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child.

“You have entered early in life upon the great theater of the world, which is full of temptations and vice of every kind.  You are not wholly unacquainted with history, in which you have read of crimes which your inexperienced mind could scarcely believe credible.  You have been taught to think of them with horror, and to view vice as

            ’A monster of so frightful mien,
    That, to be hated, needs but to be seen.’