The heart recoils at the barbarity of a mother who can thus abandon her child; but the custom, here, as in China, is sanctioned by habit, and excites no horror! LETTER XVIII. _St. Jago de Cuba._ We have received no news from the Cape, my dear friend, but it is generally expected that it will be evacuated, as several parts of the island have been already. This place is full of the inhabitants of that unfortunate country, and the story of every family would offer an interesting and pathetic subject to the pen of the novelist. All have been enveloped in the same terrible fate, but with different circumstances; all have suffered, but the sufferings of each individual derive their hue from the disposition of his mind. One catastrophe, which I witnessed, is dreadfully impressive! I saw youth, beauty and affection sink to an untimely grave, without having the power of softening the bitterness of their fate. Madame C----, a native of Jeremie, had been sent by her husband to Philadelphia, at the beginning of the revolution, where she continued several years, devoting all her time to improving the mind and cultivating the talents of her only child, the beautiful Clarissa. Sometime after the arrival of the French fleet, Madame C----, and her daughter returned to Jeremie. She had still all the charms of beauty, all the bloom of youth. She was received by her husband with a want of tenderness which chilled her heart, and she soon learned that he was attached to a woman of colour on whom he lavished all his property. This, you may suppose, was a source of mortification to Madame C----, but she suffered in silence, and sought consolation in the bosom of her daughter. When the troubles of Jeremie encreased, and it was expected every day that it would be evacuated, Monsieur C---- resolved to remove to St. Jago de Cuba. He sent his wife and child in one vessel, and embarked with his mistress in another. Arriving nearly at the same time, he took a house in the country, to which he retired with his superannuated favourite, leaving his family in town, and in such distress that they were often in want of bread. Madame C----, too delicate to expose the conduct of her husband, or to complain, concealed from her friends her wants and her grief. A young Frenchman was deeply in love with her daughter, but his fortune had been lost in the general wreck, and he had nothing to offer to the object of his adoration except a heart glowing with tenderness. He made Madame C---- the confidant of his affection. She was sensible of his worth, and would willingly have made him the protector of her daughter, had she not been struggling herself with all the horrors of poverty and therefore thought it wrong to encourage his passion.