'Your most affectionate son,
'C. P. YORKE.'
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Aug. 14.
'I imagined that the packet was just going to sail, but I am happy to say I am disappointed because I have a little news to tell you. I am just returned from a cruise of rather a curious sort. I have been sent along the coast with a party of armed men to take some smugglers who ran from the Leander. I landed at Chester, and marched and rode just as I could to Lunenburg, but without success, and then back, and so about twenty miles to the eastward. It gave me a good opportunity of seeing the country, and made it very pleasant, from the kindness and hospitality of the inhabitants. I have no doubt I shall have many of these trips from being in the admiral's and captain's notice. This letter I send by Moorsom, whom you may recollect when I was at college. Now I shall conclude with love and best wishes to all.'
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H.M.S. 'LEANDER,' HALIFAX: Novr. 12, 1817.
'MY DEAREST FATHER,
'I received both your most kind letters by the Forth and packet, which as you may suppose, gave me great pleasure and satisfaction. I return you my most grateful thanks for your great kindness in attending to my little wishes, and hope the things will arrive quite safe. I have written as you wished to Lady St. G. and told her all the news I could think of, which I shall now relate to you.
'We have not been out of harbour since the cruise to the east, so I got leave of absence and accepted the invitation of Judge Wilkins (Lumley's friend) to go and spend some time with him at Windsor, a small town about forty-five miles N.E. of Halifax, where I assure you, I passed my time very pleasantly in shooting, fishing, &c. In that part of Nova Scotia the country is beautiful, completely cleared of wood, very well cultivated, and yields to its owners immense crops of grain. I am now returned to the ship, and we sail for Bermuda in about a fortnight or three weeks. This I am rather sorry for, for Halifax is very pleasant during the winter, and Bermuda always very much otherwise. But Sir David Milne dreads the cold, so we go.