I hope, my dear child, you will not fail to come home. Send me all the particulars of your life, at the first opportunity. I am afraid you have gone through a great deal of trouble and hardship since I saw you. But the merciful Lord has been pleased to bring you through the whole, and He is able to carry you through more, if you put your trust in Him. It gave me great comfort to hear that you are so well disposed, as I am sure you are, from the spirit of your letter; it was more pleasure to me than if you had gained all the riches in the world. I wish I was as well acquainted with religion as yourself; but I will try to make a better use of my time, and should it please God to let you come home, I hope you will be the means of great good to me.
There are a number of Methodist meetings about us. The people who live in our yard are very strict ones. I never disliked the Methodists; I think they have a great gift of religion. I sent your letter to Lady Churchill, formerly Lady Francis Spencer. Both Lord and Lady Churchill were glad to hear from you, and are your well-wishers. The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough are both dead. Blenheim is much altered for the worse, since his son has become Duke. Lord Francis, that was, makes a very good master; and when the Duke died, he left Blenheim. His country house is in the forest. Your father is his carpenter in the timber yard; he has filled this situation six weeks. He comes home every Saturday; and next spring they are going to place me and the children in a lodge near him. We hope to have the happiness of seeing you there.
It is eight years the twelfth of last July, since you left us. * * * Your father, brothers and sisters all join with me in hearty prayers to Almighty God, that his blessing may be upon you; and if it is his blessed will, we shall see you again; if it is not, we must be resigned to what is fitting for us, and pray that we may all meet in heaven, where all tears shall be wiped away. That God may bless you, my dear child, is the sincere prayer of
Your ever loving mother,
Susan Newman.
Notwithstanding the earnestness of my mother’s spirit, breathed out so ardently for my return in this letter, I dared not risk myself on British soil. Her expression of sorrow, if bad consequences should ensue, had its weight in determining me to remain; but a conversation with the celebrated Lorenzo Dow, who had recently returned from his English tour, settled the question. He said he had seen four men hung, who, like me, had been in the service of some other country, after deserting from their own. This was quite sufficient; for, much as I longed to visit the homes of my childhood, I had no disposition to do it with a gallows suspended over my head. I therefore wrote my mother, that, not having a regular discharge from the navy, it would be best for me to continue where I was; but I begged them to seriously think of emigrating themselves; since my father-in-law, being an excellent carpenter, could do well in New England. Alas! it was not for him ever to consider of this proposition; for, when my letter arrived, they were performing the sad obsequies of death over his breathless corpse. A prevailing fever had terminated a life of fifty-seven years, after a sickness of two weeks. My mother, now a widow the second time, after twelve years of pleasant union with her last husband, thought it unfitting, at her time of life, to venture across the ocean; and therefore all my plans for collecting my relatives on American soil, were blasted in the bud.
Perhaps, after following me through the changes of my life at sea, the reader may feel a little interest in knowing how I succeeded as landsman. He has seen me escaping the breakers that met me on my first approach to the shore; and now, if his patience be not entirely exhausted, he may pursue my fortunes a little further.
He left me, when my episode about home led him away from the thread of the narrative, busily at work as a filer of steel-yards, at Mansfield, Conn. From thence, I returned to Ashford, where I continued a year or two. At last, doubting the stability of my employer, and fearing lest what he owed me might be lost, I took up the whole in the shape of a wagon and a stock of steel-yards; then, purchasing a horse, I travelled from place to place to sell them; and in this manner got into a business which I have followed more or less ever since. After acquiring, by economy and diligence, a few hundred dollars, I opened a small store in Mansfield, with the intention of leading a still more settled life; though about that time my mind was strongly exercised with a desire to devote myself to the religious benefit of seamen. My sense of unfitness for so great a work, at last prevailed; and I proceeded with my plans of worldly business.
The days of which I write were those on which the bright star of temperance had scarcely shone. Ministers, deacons, Christians, all used the deadly drinks. Was it surprising, therefore, that I, but so short a time before a rum-loving sailor, fell into the common current, and became a rum-seller? No, it was not strange! but it was a strange, a glorious display of restraining grace, that prevented me from being drawn into the snare I was thus thoughtlessly spreading for the poor drunkard.
But even in those early days of temperance, I was not without my trials of mind in respect to the unholy traffic. Once, when at Hartford, making purchases for my store, of which rum formed no inconsiderable article, I accidentally heard of a lecture on temperance, to be delivered at Dr. Hawes’s[29] church. This was the first discourse on the subject I ever heard. The speaker excited a deep interest in my mind, as he told of the origin of rum, its primary costliness and rank among medicines, of the growth of distilleries, the consequent decline in its price, and the attending spread of drunkenness. So deadly a plot against the peace of the world, he said, could only have been contrived in hell.