Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I have been retouching it. I have just concluded a fortnight's hard work upon it, and have the satisfaction to add that I have been seldom better satisfied than with my present labor. I have repainted the greater part of the draperies— indeed, those of all the principal figures, excepting the Dead Man—with powerful and positive colors, and added double strength to the shadows of every figure, so that for force and distinctness you would hardly know it for the same picture. The "Morning Chronicle" would have no reason now to complain of its "wan red."…
I am sorry that Parliament has been so impolite to you in procrastinating the fireworks. But they are an unpolished set and will still be in the dark age of incivility notwithstanding their late illuminations. However I am in great hopes that the good people of England will derive no small degree of moral embellishment from their pure admiration of the illustrious General B——, who, it is said, for drinking and gaming has no equal.
BRISTOL, September 9, 1814.
MY DEAR PARENTS,—Your kind letters of June last I have received, and return you a thousand thanks for them. They have relieved me from a painful state of anxiety with respect to my future prospects. I cannot feel too thankful for such kind parents who have universally shown so much indulgence to me. Accept my gratitude and love; they are all I can give.
You allow me to stay in Europe another year. Your letters are not in answer to some I have subsequently sent requesting leave to reside in Paris. Mr. Allston, as well as all my friends, think it by all means necessary I should lose no time in getting to France to improve myself for a year in drawing (a branch of art in which I am very deficient).
I shall therefore set out for Paris in about two weeks, unless your letters in answer to those sent by Drs. Heyward and Gushing should arrive and say otherwise. Since coming to Bristol I have not found my prospects so good as I before had reason to expect (owing in a great degree to political irritation). I have, however, contrived to make sufficient to pay off all my debts, which have given me some considerable uneasiness.
I can live much more reasonably in Paris (indeed, some say for half what I can in London); I can improve myself more; and, therefore, all things taken into consideration, I believe it would be agreeable to my parents. As to the political state of Paris, there is nothing to fear from that. It appears perfectly tranquil, and should at any time any difficulties arise, it is but three days' journey back to England again. Besides this, I hope my parents will not feel any solicitude for me lest I should fall into any bad way, when they consider that I am now between twenty-three and twenty-four years of age, and that this is an age when the habits are generally fixed.
As for expense, I must also request your confidence. Feeling as I do the great obligations I am under to my parents, they must think me destitute of gratitude if they thought me capable, after all that has been said to me, of being prodigal. The past I trust you will find to be an example for the future.
In a letter from a friend, M. Van Schaick, written from Dartmouth,
October 13, 1814, after speaking in detail of the fortifications of New
York Harbor, which he considers "impregnable," we find the following
interesting information:—
"But what satisfies my mind more than anything else is that all the heights of Brooklyn on Long Island are occupied by strong chains of forts; the Captain calls it an iron-work; and that the steamboat frigate, carrying forty-four 32-pounders, must by this time be finished. Her sides are eight feet thick of solid timber. No ball can penetrate her…. The steamboat frigate is 160 feet long, 40 wide, carries her wheels in the centre like the ferry-boats, and will move six miles an hour against a common wind and tide. She is the wonder and admiration of all beholders."