substantial man, perhaps our best plan would be to try to get Henry into his house. You have certainly some claim there, and the Dutchmen desired we would apply to them if ever they could do any thing to serve us--we can but try. I am afraid you will say, ‘_This is like one of Godfrey’s wild schemes._’ I am still more afraid that you should think Henry’s romantic story is _against him_--but such things are--that is all I can say. Here is no motive for deception; and if you were to see the young man, his countenance and manner would immediately persuade you of his perfect truth and ingenuousness. I am aware that his romantic history would not do for the Dutch merchants, or the London partner; they would probably set him down directly for an adventurer, and refuse to have any thing to do with him: so I see no necessity for beginning by stating it. I know you hate, and I am sure so do I, all novel-like concealments and mysteries; but because a man makes a bargain with another, he is not obliged to tell him his whole history--because he takes him for his partner or his master, he is not called upon to make him his confidant. All that the merchants can want or have a right to know is forthcoming and clear--character and money. “My affectionate love and old-fashioned duty to my dear mother--pray assure her and my sisters that they shall hear from me, though I am going to have ‘one foot on sea and one on land.’ “Tell dear Caroline the portfolio she made for me shall go with me to the world’s end; and Rosamond’s _Tippoo Saib_ shall see the _West_ Indies--Gascoigne has been in the West Indies before now, and he says and proves, that temperance and spice are the best preservatives in that climate; so you need not fear for me, for you know I love pepper better than port. I am called away, and can only add that the yellow fever there has subsided, as an officer who arrived last week tells me. Our regiment is just going to embark in high spirits.--God bless you all. “Your affectionate son, “G. Percy. “P. S. Don’t let my mother or Rosamond trust to newspaper reports--trust to nothing but my letters;--Caroline, I know, is fit to be the sister, and I hope will some time be the mother, of heroes.” CHAPTER IX.