THE NARRATIVE CONCLUDED BY GERALD, VISCOUNT ST. AMANDE "AFTER THESE STORMS AT LAST A CALM" Many years have passed since those events occurred which have been written down by my dear wife and myself, and, hand in hand as ever, we are beginning to grow old. Thus I, who was but a boy when my father died and this history commenced, am now a middle-aged man fast nearing forty. My children, too, are no longer to be regarded as children; Gerald, my eldest boy, is promised a guidon in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards Blue. My second son is at home in England in preparation for Oxford. My third, a little lad, is a midshipman serving under Sir Charles Knowles, and, by his last letter, I gather that he is almost as proud of the naval uniform which hath this year of grace, 1748, been authorised to the King's Navy, as of the attack on Port Louis, in St. Domingo, in which he took part. Of daughters I have been blessed with one alone, who in name, as in features and complexion, resembles what her dear mother must have been ere I had the good fortune to set eyes on her. The Marquis of Amesbury has been dead twelve years, yet the House of Lords has not yet called me to take my seat there as his successor. This, however, is of supreme indifference to me--so much so, indeed, that I have not yet petitioned them to enrol me in his place, though Sir Robert Walpole, after he became Earl of Orford, frequently desired me to do so, saying that it would be better done in his lifetime than afterwards. Yet he is dead, too; and 'tis not done. Why should it be, I often ask myself, except for my children's sake? I dwell in Virginia, which spot I love exceedingly, and I am never like to dwell anywhere else; while as for the Marquis's wealth it has all come to me. Yet, as I say, for the children's sake I must some day make out my claim to the honour. When I do so there can be no opposition to it. After that dreadful tragedy in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and after the Marquis had sternly bade my uncle go forth and never darken his doors again, Robert St. Amande--seeing, I suppose, that all was lost and being, indeed, then very near to absolute destitution--betook himself to the Temple Stairs, and, casting himself into the river, was swept away by the fast ebbing tide and drowned, his body never being recovered. He left a child, the boy by his second marriage that has heretofore been spoken of, who has ever since been my care, and who will be so as long as I live, as well as being provided for at my death, but that he can dispute my children's birthright is, of course, impossible. Nor, I think, is it probable he would have any desire to do so, being in character most amiable and gentle as well as grateful, and vastly different from his wretched half-brother, Roderick.