Tuesday, _1st July_.--I am once more in London, after a long absence and much wandering in America, where I sought in vain for my dear son, Frederick, the son I wronged and thrust from my house. Bitterly have I repented of my error, and bitterly am I punished for it. Almost at the last moment, in New York, a hope of success was held out to me. Returning to my hotel there from New Orleans, in which city, from information conveyed to me in a letter from a stranger, I hoped to find Frederick, I was informed that a gentleman had called to see me. The description given to me of this gentleman--who, the manager of the hotel informed me, appeared to be in by no means prosperous circumstances--left no doubt in my mind that it was my son. He had, then, received the letters I sent to him, directed to the New York Post-office, and had at once sought me out. Unhappy chance that caused me to be absent when he called! I must have been a thousand miles away at the time, following a false scent supplied by a stranger. It has occurred to me within these last few days, during my voyage home, that an enemy may have been at work in America to prevent a meeting between me and my son. There is no meanness, no wickedness, no baseness, to which the wretched woman who calls me husband, and her paramour, would not stoop. And for the cunning necessary to keep me and my son apart from each other, have I not had sufficient proof that they are capable of it? Strange that the suspicion did not occur to me in America! Now that--perhaps too late--it presents itself, it comes upon me with singular force. The letter, written to me by a stranger, which drove me so far from New York on a fruitless errand, was not the only one I received conveying to me, gratuitously, information which retarded instead of assisting me in my purpose. They were all in different handwriting, it is true, but may they not have been written by one man? Even were it otherwise, there is as little difficulty in New York as there is in London in obtaining agents to assist in the carrying out of any villainous design. But now my mind is set upon this suspicion of systematic deceit, I am of the opinion that but one enemy was engaged in it, and that that enemy is the scoundrel Pelham, my wretched wife's accomplice. If it be so, he must have followed me to America, and watched my movements, cunningly misdirecting them when he deemed it necessary. Working against such an enemy is working in the dark. It is my unhappy fate that, alone, I have not the courage to publicly proclaim my disgrace. I should die under the shame of it. With my son by my side I might be able, were no other way open for a settlement, to nerve myself to any effort he might advise. Without him I am powerless, and indeed, were a public exposure forced upon me--were I certain that by no other possible means could I rid myself of this infamous woman--my son's evidence would be necessary to complete the case against her. But before