The news of the accouchement of my wife brought a very numerous party of friends and relations to my house, where they waited for the baptism, which took place in my drawing-room. Anna, then almost thoroughly well, was present on the occasion: my son was named Henry, after his uncle. At this time I was happy; Oh, so truly happy! for my wishes were nearly gratified. There was but one not so--and that was to see again my aged mother and my sisters; but I hoped that the time was not far distant when I should realise the project of revisiting my native country. My farming speculation was most prosperous: my receipts were every year on the increase; my fields were covered with the richest crops of sugar-canes, to the cultivation of which, and of rice, I had joined that of coffee. My brother had taken upon himself the management of a very large plantation, which promised the most brilliant results; and appeared likely to secure the premium which the Spanish government had promised to give to the proprietor of a plantation of eighty thousand feet of coffee in product. But, alas! the period of my happiness had passed away, and what pain and what grief was I not doomed to suffer before I again saw my native country. My brother--my poor Henry--committed some imprudences, and was suddenly attacked with an intermittent fever, which in a few days carried him off. My Anna and I shed abundance of tears, for we both loved Henry with the warmest affection. For several years we had lived together; he participated in all our labours, our troubles, and our pleasures. He was the only relative I had in the Philippines. He had left France, where he had filled an honourable position, with the sole object of coming to see me, and of aiding me in the great task which I had undertaken. His amiable qualities and his excellent heart had endeared him to us: his loss was irreparable, and the thought that I had no longer a brother added poignancy to my bitter grief. Prudent, the youngest, had died at Madagascar; Robert, the next to me, died at La Planche, near Nantes, in the little dwelling where we spent our childhood; and my poor Henry at Jala-Jala. I erected a simple tomb for him near the door of the church, and for several months Jala-Jala was a place of grief and mourning. We had scarcely begun, not indeed to console ourselves, but rather to bear with resignation the loss we had experienced, when a new dispensation of fate came to strike me to the earth.