The letter was written in the month of July, 1819. He begins by saying with perfect sincerity that he always loved his father, that he always would love him, and that he deeply grieved at being the cause of giving him pain. "You know me," he continues, "and you know what my conduct has been up to now. You will see that in all Italy, and I may say in all Europe, no other person of my rank and even younger than I am, and perhaps with intellectual gifts inferior to mine, could be found who would show one-half of the circumspection, abstinence from all the pleasures of youth, obedience and submission to his parents that I have shown. However poor your opinion may be of the few talents that Heaven has bestowed upon me, you cannot altogether refuse to credit the many estimable and famous men who have passed the judgement upon me which you know and which it is not for me to repeat. It was the marvel of everybody who knew me that I should still be buried in this town, and that you alone should be of an opposite opinion, and should inflexibly persist therein. It is certainly not unknown to you, that there is not a youth of barely seventeen years of age who is not taken in hand by his parents to be placed in a position for his future advantage. I say nothing about the liberty accorded to all young people of that age in our position in life--liberty of which not one-third was accorded to me at the age of twenty-one. It was only recently that I began to ask you to provide for my future in the manner indicated by the opinion of all who knew me. I noticed several families of this town, probably less well off than we are, making heavy sacrifices in order to start their sons in life, however faint the indications of promising talent might be. "Many people were of opinion that my intellect showed much more than a faint indication; but you were of opinion that I was quite unworthy of a father's solicitude or of any sacrifice on his part, nor did you think that my present or future welfare was of sufficient importance for you to make any alteration in your domestic arrangements.