If any thing, said Wilson, could reconcile me to the imprisonment of a ship, it would be a day like this, with a breeze impregnated with odours of orange flowers to regale my senses, and the elements in good humour all around me. I am happy to discover that there are some consolatory moments in a seaman’s life. And now, my dear John, I am satisfied you have not let these singular events pass by without reflecting, with due gratitude to the Disposer of our fate, how graciously he has been pleased to terminate our enterprize; which, though not absolutely untinctured with disappointment and misfortune, might yet have led to miseries, that would have admitted of no consolation. Don’t let me wound your filial feelings, when I remind you, that the blow, which made you fatherless, might have fallen where it would have extinguished more lives than one, and blotted out the very name of De Lancaster for ever. If I went so far as to say, that probably there are few beings in existence, whose loss society has less cause to mourn than that of him, whose remains we are now bearing to the grave, I should not at least offend against truth, tho’ I might need your pardon for addressing the remark to you. How visible is the hand of divine justice in the apprehension of that guilty wretch, and in the prevention of those further crimes, which he meditated to commit! What can be more strikingly charactered, more impressively apportioned to our ideas of retribution, than that tragical catastrophe, which passed before your eyes, and put a period to his sinful life? How mercifully is it ordered, that those worldly blessings, which he so grossly abused, will now devolve upon one, who seems able and disposed to estimate them rightly, and employ them worthily! when we turn our thoughts to what has come to pass respecting my most fortunate and happy brother, what a dispensation do we contemplate! How unexpected, how beyond all hope! If in one respect we bring home with us fresh cause for mourning, do we not also bring full matter for rejoicing, if happily we return to our dear friends in safety, and find them, as Heaven grant we may! in prosperous health and undisturbed tranquillity of mind?