Soon after this Mr. Johnson received from the States the mournful intelligence of his father’s death, and, like a dutiful son, immediately sailed for Plymouth to see his mother and sisters. His brother, equally anxious with his mother and friends to have him stop at home, offered him a situation as clerk in a lawyer’s office. But, alas! those pretty feet! They had caused him to sacrifice his home; and although shipwrecked in the attempt, he is now back in Ruatan, with no expectation of ever meeting his Plymouth friends again during life. “I told them,” said he, “she was not quite so white as some of them, but she’s a darn sight better-hearted;” which is very probably a fact. Mr. Johnson affirmed, also, that he could not be induced to leave Ruatan for the income of the most princely merchant in Boston; but I make allowances for a man who has a young wife with pretty feet. Ruatan, as you are aware, is the principal one of the celebrated Bay Islands, the sovereignty of which has been so long in dispute. Nor can I settle the question as to whether the British claim is just or not; I can only give it to you as I get it. In the first place you must know there is what may be called _two Honduras_. That is, the State of Honduras, and these Bay Islands with a portion of the Musquito coast, constituting British Honduras, of which Balize is the capital. This will relieve a great many blunders people have perpetually fallen into. When or by whom Ruatan was originally settled is now unknown. It was discovered by the Spaniards, and was afterwards occupied as a military post, but subsequently abandoned. Soon after the Emancipation Act took effect in Jamaica and the other British isles, a number of these emancipated slaves settled here, and the settlement is now multiplied to the number of about three thousand. It becoming necessary for them to have a government, they sent to Jamaica for a magistrate to act as governor, voting him a salary of three thousand dollars, and, being British subjects, of course looked to Great Britain for protection. And so Great Britain claims the right to protect them; and she does protect them. It was off this island that the pirate Walker rendezvoused the present summer; and from what I have said respecting the immigration hither of a few white Americans, you will probably suppose there might be some advantage taken of these islanders; but do not think it. Mr. William Walker’s recent experience at Truxillo will probably induce him to respect Ruatan. Nevertheless, Ruatan is measurably affected, of course, by the prosperity of the main land, and if the future administration of the United States government is to be as weak and vacillating as the past has been, it is difficult to say what is to be the end of these invasions.