But neither Esquire Hancock nor Mr. Glin at Stepney could control the force of Nature, or persuade the delicate fruit-trees of Old England to blossom and flourish here, even on the south side of Beacon Hill. The maxim, "_L'homme propose, et le bon Dieu dispose_," was found to be as inevitable in 1736 as it is in our later day and generation. It is true that no ancestral Downing was then at hand, with wise counsels of arboriculture, nor had any accidental progenitor of Sir Henry Stuart of Allanton as yet taught the Edinboro' public of the Pretender's time the grand secrets of transplanting and induration. Esquire Hancock, therefore, was left to work out by himself his own woful, but natural disappointment. On the 24th of June, 1737, he writes to the unfortunate nurseryman in a strain of severe, and, as he doubtless thought, of most righteous indignation. "SIR,--I Rec'd. your Letter & your Baskett of flowers per. Capt. Morris, & have Desired Francis Wilks Esq'r to pay you £26 for them _Though they are Every one Dead_. The Trees I Rec'd Last Year are above half Dead too,--the Hollys all Dead but one, & worse than all is, the Garden Seeds and Flower Seeds which you Sold Mr. Wilks for me Charged at £6. 8's. 2'd. Sterling were not worth one farthing. Not one of all the Seeds Came up Except the Asparrow Grass, So that my Garden is Lost to me for this Year. I Tryed the Seeds both in Town and Country & all proved alike bad. I Spared Mr. Hubbard part of them _and they All Serv'd him the Same_." (Rather an unlucky blow this for poor Glin, as Mr. Hubbard had been his first sponsor and perhaps his only friend in New England.) "I think Sir, you have not done well by me in this thing, for me to send a 1000 Leagues and Lay out my money & be so used & Disapointed is very hard to Bare, & so I doubt not but you will Consider the matter & Send me over Some more of the Same Sort of Seeds that are Good & Charge me nothing for them,--if you don't I shall think you have imposed upon me very much, & 't will Discourage me from ever Sending again for Trees or Seeds from you. I Conclude, "Your Humble Serv't. "T. H. "P. S. _The Tulip Roots you were pleased to make a present off to me are all Dead as well._" The last paragraph is truly delicious,--a real Parthian arrow, of the keenest, most penetrating kind. The ill-used gentleman is determined that poor Glin shall find no crumb of credit left,--not in the matter of the purchased wares alone, but even for the very presents that he had had the effrontery to send him.