Good night, I am going to bed, and to sleep if I can. Mrs. Allen will be with Lady Maclairn. I direct my letters to Sedley. You will understand by the accompaniments my reason for so doing. Mary might wonder at not being trusted; Mr. Sedley will give you this packet. Adieu. Let me know that the intelligence is secure in your hands. My friend wishes you to keep these with the other papers: she has read them. I am really quite worn out with one or two night’s watching; but do not fancy me sick, should I be lazy. We expect Sir Murdoch the day after to-morrow; and I may have too much business on my hands to write to you before Saturday. LETTER LXV. _From Mr. Paget to Capt. Percival Flint._ (_Enclosed in the preceding._) DEAR SIR, _Kingston, Jamaica, &c._ The melancholy contents of this letter will sufficiently account for its being written by a stranger to you. The duty assigned to me will, however, at once show me the friend of Mr. Flint, and the painful witness of the distress, into which all his family are plunged. The sudden death of Mr. Flamall, his uncle, is an event, which, under the _common_ circumstances of human life, would require precaution, in the communication of it at _Farefield Hall_. But my poor friend has to dread every thing, lest the catastrophe of his uncle’s end, should reach his mother through the channel of the public papers. He conjures you to consult his brother Malcolm in those measures which are necessary to prevent this blow reaching the hall too suddenly for his mother’s strength. Before I begin the detail of those particulars, which you will naturally wish to have before you, permit me to have the satisfaction of assuring you, that my _patient_, and I may add my _dearest friend_, Philip Flint, is in a degree recovered from the illness brought on by the first agitation of his spirits; his amiable wife is well, and as yet a stranger to the shocking tale. I will now begin my melancholy task. The arrival of a large vessel in this port, from New York, and commanded by a Captain Nelson, may be assigned as _one_ of those cases which have produced the event before me. In consequence of Mr. Flamall’s having a concern in the cargo, he was induced to quit his retirement; and to come to the Creek plantation, near this place. To this circumstance I was a stranger, however, having, as Mr. Flint’s friend, dropped a man, generally condemned for his inflexibility; and at present forgotten by that society, which for some time he had so carefully, and gloomily avoided.