Within this period the following letters, under different dates from the West Indies, had reached the hands of Mrs. Philip De Lancaster.
“From Captain Jones—Letter the first.
“Madam,
“In a few days after I had arrived at my destination I fell ill, and my disorder soon assumed those appearances, which in this country are considered to afford but little chance of a recovery. The wife and daughter of my friend Major Parsons, who came passengers with me in the same transport, with a benignity, that exposed their lives to danger, under Providence saved me from death.
“Unfortunately for the younger of my preservers, she conceived so strong an attachment, that I must have been the most unfeeling and the most ungrateful of all men could I have remained insensible to her partiality. Her health became in danger, and both her father and mother, well apprised of the cause of it, offered and even solicited me to accept her hand in marriage, and I did not withstand their joint appeal.
“Thus, after your example, I have married, and I am persuaded, that my wife, had she the honour of being known to you, would please you by the gentleness of her character and the unaffected modesty of her manners. I have stationed her in a little cottage near adjoining to the barracks, and in a healthy situation; but her father Major Parsons is like myself a soldier of fortune, and our establishment is proportioned to our means.
“I write by this conveyance to lay her jointly with myself at the feet of my benevolent patron your ever-honoured father. She presumes to send you a few tropical fruits of her own preserving, and hopes you will condescend to accept of them together with her most humble respects and unfeigned good wishes.
I have the honour to be,
Madam, &c. &c.
John Jones.”
The second letter from Captain Jones, of a date posterior by about a year to the foregoing, is as follows—
“Madam,