“If my long summer absence, and the continual interruptions which followed it to the middle of October, had not brought most heavy arrears of business upon my hands, you would have heard from me ere this. It seems my fate, like yours, to have more business as I advance in life, and less leisure for what I should take more delight in;—however, God be praised who gives me strength and ability to go on, and enables me to support what, even with the best and most careful economy, is necessarily an expensive household.
“I have been prevented from finishing this letter by
the unexpected appearance of Lieut. Mawe,
who has come from Peru down the Orellana, being the first Englishman who has
ever descended that river. He has brought his manuscript to me before it goes
to the press. I had seen him at Chantrey’s just on his arrival, and he is wishing now
that my History of Brazil
had fallen in his way before he began his expedition. You may suppose how
interesting I find his conversation and his journal. The account which he gives
of Para is not favourable; trade is declining for want of specie; the English
and American merchants are obliged to take produce in payment, and on that
account price their goods it is said 30 per cent, above what they otherwise
would do, and this makes them too dear for the market. Steam-boats, whenever
they are introduced, will
| 338 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 53. |
“God bless you, my dear friend! and bring you through all those difficulties which you had so little reason to expect, and had done nothing to bring upon yourself. The inflictions of injustice are, I suppose, the most difficult of all evils to bear with equanimity—evils which arise from our own faults we receive as their chastisement and our own deserts,—those which Heaven are pleased to inflict are borne as being its will. I hope and trust that there are better days in store for you. Alas! how ill do times and seasons sometimes suit with our views and wishes. Had you been removed to Bristol four-and-twenty years sooner, I should never have been removed from it.
“Once more, with kind remembrances from all here,
