Now while speaking of Madam Heliodora, I must not omit to set down a matter that did cause me much concern--viz., that about the end of the year 1674 news reached us at Amidavat that St Thomas was fallen at last into the hands of the Dutch, but with such credit to the besieged that ’twas permitted ’em to march out with all the honours of war, and to proceed whither they would. And upon this certain of them did repair to the vicinage of Gingee, in the kingdom of Visiapour, where they had obtained a grant of land from the king of the place, and did set up there a town called Phoolcherry.[101] Others of them came to Surat, to their own factory there, but on enquiring of ’em concerning my lord marquis and his household, I learned that he had been summoned back to France, and was departed thither, but whether upon a sealed letter or not I can’t tell, and with him his family. And for this I was much grieved, both for the failure of so great and fair-seeming an enterprise, and also that Madam Heliodora was now so far removed from me. Now about six months before my time at Amidavat was expired, there come to me such a piece of news as might well have caused me to repent of my evil deeds and resolve to lead a better life, but God suffered me to go on still in my ungrateful courses, that my punishment might be the more grievous when it came. For I received a great packet of letters from England, some of ’em wrote a year and a half, and others but nine months ago (the first sort having been delayed on the high seas owing to some mischance that befell the vessel carrying ’em), but the burden of them all was the same, for they brought me the news that my father was dead. And this, as you may suppose, came upon me prodigious sharp and sudden in the midst of my toiling and sparing for to gather together the moneys that my father had looked for, but the more so by reason of this--viz., that I had had no letters wrote from Ellswether since I sent that one from St Thomas, boasting of my presumptuous hopes, nor in my own letters had I been able to bring myself to explain and describe the destruction of these hopes, but had wrote of indifferent matters without so much as making mention of ’em, although I had feared that my father would be sore troubled touching me. I had intended at some time in the future, when the pain of my rejection was less poignant, to write and declare to him the whole affair, and my present situation, but this was now removed out of my power by death. The letter earliest in time was wrote by my cousin Dorothy:--