Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/507

No. 169] not be the only exile left in a forlorn condition if any provision be made ; and if never made, forlorn I shall truly be, my finances every day very sensibly lessening. Had I received Mr. Deberdt's letter in time I should have returned to London, but it was otherwise ; and if my presence now can be dispensed with, it will be more agreeable, as I live pleasantly enough among a few acquaintances, at the rate of twenty guineas a year, in a state of rigid economy that I never before was reduced to the necessity of putting in practice. . ..

[Dec. 31.] My little bark is in imminent hazard of being stranded unless the wind shifts quickly, or some friendly boat appears for its relief. In plain English, my purse is nearly empty ; — which circumstance has of late frequently reminded me of an emblematical device in the beginning of Fuller s History of the Holy Wars, wherein on the right is a purse distended with gold and standing upright, on the left the same turned upside down, in a lank condition, emptied wholly of its contents, with these words under the former, "we went out full" and under the latter, "we returned empty." I do not know but I am departed from my country, family and friends, on as foolish and fantastic grounds as the misguided devotees of that time did to rescue the Holy Land from infidels, though on opposite principles, I confess ; they to fight, I to avoid fighting. I now begin to tremble lest the same fate awaits me that befell them. I dislike the motives of the chief agents in America, and their whole system from its first small beginnings to its full monstrous growth of independency ; and I trust from a very just motive, love of my country ; which this place I am convinced has no tendency to promote the welfare of. But what of that? It is my duty, and sure the state is not to reward the loyalty of every subject ; the court in this case would have more than enough to do to satisfy the demands of all claimants.

I cannot foresee what I may hereafter do, but easily that I must suffer hunger and nakedness in the comfortless mansions of the wretched. These ideas I have not been accustomed to associate. . ..

Exeter, March 7 [1777]. I received a letter from London informing me of my wife's health and welfare in November last, and that she had been obliged to pay ten pounds sterling to find a man for the American army in my stead. . . . March 10. Walked out to Judge Sewall's, he having the day before engaged to accompany me to the Treasury, where after a compliment I received information of a hundred pounds down, and a hundred per annum during the troubles in America, which I esteem as a providential