We were as poor as ever, even more so; for my father was led into unavoidable expenses in London; so, after all the excitement, we returned to our more than usually economical life. No events worth mentioning happened for a long time. I continued my diversified pursuits as usual; had they been more concentrated, it would have been better; but there was no choice; for I had not the means of pursuing any one as far as I could wish, nor had I any friend to whom I could apply for direction or information. I was often deeply depressed at spending so much time to so little purpose. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 5: The late Justice Coltman told us, when he and Lady Coltman came to see my father and mother at Siena, that he recollected when he first went the circuit seeing more than twenty people hanged at once at York, chiefly for horse-stealing and such offences.--EDITOR.] CHAPTER V. FIRST MARRIAGE (1804)--WIDOWHOOD--STUDIES--SECOND MARRIAGE. [Mr. Samuel Greig was a distant relation of the Charters family. His father, an officer in the British navy, had been sent by our government, at the request of the Empress Catharine, to organize the Russian navy. Mr. Greig came to the Firth of Forth on board a Russian frigate, and was received by the Fairfaxes at Burntisland with Scotch hospitality, as a cousin. He eventually married my mother; not, however, until he had obtained the Russian consulship, and settled permanently in London, for Russia was then governed in the most arbitrary and tyrannical manner, and was neither a safe nor a desirable residence, and my grandfather only gave his consent to the marriage on this condition. My mother says:--] * * * * * My cousin, Samuel Greig, commissioner of the Russian navy, and Russian consul for Britain, came to pay us a visit, and ultimately became my husband. Fortune I had none, and my mother could only afford to give me a very moderate trousseau, consisting chiefly of fine personal and household linen. When I was going away she gave me twenty pounds to buy a shawl or something warm for the following winter. I knew that the President of the Academy of Painting, Sir Arthur Shee, had painted a portrait of my father immediately after the battle of Camperdown, and I went to see it. The likeness pleased me,--the price was twenty pounds; so instead of a warm shawl I bought my father's picture, which I have since given to my nephew, Sir William George Fairfax. My husband's brother, Sir Alexis Greig, who commanded the Russian naval force in the Black Sea for more than twenty years, came to London about this time, and gave me some furs, which were very welcome. Long after this, I applied to Sir Alexis, at the request of Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and through his interest an order was issued by the Russian Government for simultaneous observations to be made of the tides on every sea-coast of the empire.