This amiable young lady, some of whose letters have been introduced into
this narrative, did not long survive her brother's liberty. This
impassioned and most affectionate of sisters, with an excess of
sensibility, which acted too powerfully on her bodily frame, sunk, as is
often the case with such susceptible minds, on the first attack of
consumption. She died within the year of her brother's liberation. On
this occasion the following note from her afflicted mother appears
among the papers from which the letters and poetry are taken.
'My dearest Nessy was seized, while on a visit at Major
Yorke's, at Bishop's Grove near Tonbridge Wells, with a
violent cold, and not taking proper care of herself, it soon
turned to inflammation on her lungs, which carried her off at
Hastings, to which place she was taken on the 5th September,
to try if the change of air, and being near the sea, would
recover her; but alas! it was too late for her to receive the
wished for benefit, and she died there on the 25th of the same
month 1793, and has left her only surviving parent a
disconsolate mother, to lament, while ever she lives, with the
most sincere and deep affliction, the irreparable loss of her
most valuable, affectionate, and darling daughter.'[35]
But to return to Mr. Heywood. When the king's full and free pardon had
been read to this young officer by Captain Montagu, with a suitable
admonition and congratulation, he addressed that officer in the
following terms,--so suitably characteristic of his noble and manly
conduct throughout the whole of the distressing business in which he was
innocently involved:--
SIR,--When the sentence of the law was passed upon me, I
received it, I trust, as became a man; and if it had been
carried into execution, I should have met my fate, I hope, in a
manner becoming a Christian. Your admonition cannot fail to
make a lasting impression on my mind. I receive with gratitude
my sovereign's mercy, for which my future life shall be
faithfully devoted to his service.'[36]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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