set off towards the manufacturing towns, to exercise his ministry in its various and extensive functions. In this expedition, we shall for the present leave the holy Roger O’Rourke. For two months the colonel continued free of his complaints, and in this time his second son, who had been mate of an Indiaman, commanded by his uncle captain Wentbridge, arrived in Britain, and hurried down to see his parents.--The colonel rejoiced extremely to see young Henry, and anticipating, from some twinges and spasms, an early and fatal return of his distemper, expressed himself thankful to Providence for allowing him, before his death, to have all his children in his presence. A fortnight more, however, passed without any important occurrence; when early one morning Mrs. Hamilton ran into William’s room, and in the greatest consternation and grief told him his father was dying. The alarm proved too well founded; the gout had returned to his stomach, with more violence than ever; every regimen and medicine requisite in such cases was employed, but all to no purpose. A few hours brought the malady to a fatal termination. The family was long inconsolable for the loss of such a head. By degrees, reflection and time allayed their affliction. Mrs. Hamilton, tenderly loving all her children, was most strongly attached to her eldest son, who was the exact image of his father; she could not bear the thought of parting with him. When the time approached that he must return to London, she proposed to make the metropolis her residence, and considered her finances, if œconomically managed, as adequate to such an undertaking. Her late husband, ever since his marriage, had been extremely œconomical, and, in addition to his own fifteen hundred pounds, having received as much by the death of Mrs. Hamilton’s aunt and god-mother, the sum, by frugality and judicious purchases in the funds, had now risen to about sixteen thousand consols. Her moiety of the interest of which, she did not doubt, would be sufficient. Accordingly it was determined that she should remove to London, as soon as a house was procured. Old Etterick, who was become extremely fond of his nephew and niece, would have with much pleasure made one of the party; but the urgent entreaties and remonstrances of his daughter, who represented herself and her mother as heart-broken by affliction for the conduct of O’Rourke (now completely discovered), and her mother as approaching her dissolution, impelled him to take a different course. The last piece of intelligence he bore with much resignation, but thought that decency required his presence on that occasion, and accordingly set off for Etterick, about the middle of November. Our hero, taking a contrary direction, proceeded to London. CHAPTER VIII.