"The general subject, however, was the absorbing topic at the dinner-table. After dinner the company joined the ladies in the drawing-room. I sat near a window which looked put in the direction of the distant park. Presently a flash and a distant dull report of a gun attracted my attention, but was unnoticed by the rest of the company. Another flash and report assured me that the park guns were firing, and at once I called Mr. Wilberforce's attention to the fact. Running to the window he threw it up in time to see the next flash and hear the report. Clasping his hands in silence, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, he stood for a few moments perfectly absorbed in thought, and, before uttering a word, embraced his wife and daughters, and shook hands with every one in the room. The scene was one not to be forgotten." We learn from a letter of his mother's dated June 27, 1815, that the painting of the "Dying Hercules" had at last been received, but that the plaster cast of the same subject was still mysteriously missing. The painting was much admired, and the mother says:-- "Your friend Mr. Tisdale says the picture of the Hercules ought to be in Boston as the beginning of a gallery of paintings, and that the Bostonians ought not to permit it to go from here. Whether they will or not, I know not. I place no confidence in them, but they may take a fit into their heads to patronize the fine arts, and, in that case, they have it in their power undoubtedly to do as much as any city in this country towards their support." Morse had now made up his mind to return home, although his parents, in their letters of that time, had given him leave to stay longer if he thought it would be for his best interest, but his father had made it clear that he must, from this time forth, depend on his own exertions. He hoped that (Providence permitting) he need only spend a year at home in earning enough money to warrant his returning to Europe. Providence, however, willed otherwise, and he did not return to Europe until fourteen years later. The next letter is dated from Liverpool, August 8, 1815, and is but a short one. I shall quote the first few sentences:-- "I have arrived thus far on my way home. I left London the 5th and arrived in this place yesterday the 7th, at which time, within an hour, four years ago, I landed in England. I have not yet determined by what vessel to return; I have a choice of a great many. The Ceres is the first that sails, but I do not like her accommodations. The Liverpool packet sails about the 25th, and, as she has always been a favorite ship with me, it is not improbable I may return in her." He decided to sail in the Ceres, however, to his sorrow, for the voyage home was a long and dreadful one. The record of those terrible fifty-eight days, carefully set down in his journal, reads like an Odyssey of misfortune and almost of disaster.