"In short, Jack, I have wronged you; but I should wrong you still more were I to furnish you with the means of advancing one other step in your bloody and inhuman profession. It is full time that we should discard all national recollections. We have already given a glorious example to Europe and the world, by throwing open our ports to their produce without requiring the assurance of reciprocity--let us take another step in the same direction, and, by a complete disarmament, convince them that for the future we rely upon moral reason, instead of physical force, as the means of deciding differences. I shall be glad, my dear boy, to repair the injury which I have unfortunately done you, by contributing a sum, equal to three times the amount required for the purchase of a company, towards your establishment as a partner in an exporting house, if you can hear of an eligible offer. Pray keep an eye on the advertising columns of the _Economist_. That journal is in every way trustworthy, except, perhaps, when it deals in quotation. I must now conclude, as I have to attend a meeting for the purpose of denouncing the policy of Russia, and of warning the misguided capitalists of London against the perils of an Austrian loan. You cannot, I am sure, doubt my affection, but you must not expect me to advance my money towards keeping up a herd of locusts, without which there would be a general conversion of swords and bayonets into machinery--ploughshares, spades, and pruning-hooks being, for the present, rather at a discount.--I remain always your affectionate uncle, "PETER PETTIGREW. "_P. S._--Address to me at Hesse Homberg, whither I am going as a delegate to the Peace Congress." "Well, what do you think of that?" said Wilkinson, when I had finished this comfortable epistle. "I presume you agree with me, that I have no chance whatever of receiving assistance from that quarter." "Why, not much I should say, unless you can succeed in convincing Mr Pettigrew of the error of his ways. It seems to me a regular case of monomania." "Would you not suppose, after reading that letter, that I was a sort of sucking tiger, or at best an ogre, who never could sleep comfortably unless he had finished off the evening with a cup of gore?" said Wilkinson. "I like that coming from old Uncle Peter, who used to sing Rule Britannia till he was hoarse, and always dedicated his second glass of port to the health of the Duke of Wellington!" "But what do you intend to do?" said I. "Will you accept his offer, and become a fabricator of calicoes?" "I'd as soon become a field preacher, and hold forth on an inverted tub! But the matter is really very serious. In his present mood of mind, Uncle Peter will disinherit me to a certainty if I remain in the army." "Does he usually adhere long to any particular crotchet?" said I.