Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/404

 396 Your observations and criticisms, or rather hints on the probability of the children doing well without the parent, and on the coalition I mentioned in my last, appear to me extremely just, and have contributed to open my eyes. However, they are subjects that require to be treated with great delicacy, and like fenny lands, will only bear to be gently touched and slightly skimmed. God only knows the determinations of his own wise counsels, or what grand revolutions may be ripe for birth. Our business is patiently to wait their execution, and when executing or executed, humbly to acquiesce in them as wise, and just, and right, and best.

Our public affairs, as you will collect from mine to my uncle John, are not in such a state as blind mortals, who see but little beyond the present, would wish, or as a friend to his country, who attentively surveys them, any satisfaction.

You will therefore also see, that we are trying first one expedient and then another, to give them a more pleasing aspect, depending, I hope, on Providence, to crown them with success. For this purpose, several schemes have been recommended, and several projects seen the light, besides many more which probably have perished in their embryo state.

Among other adventurers of this sort in the aerial world who erect elaborate piles of building in the air, you will fear I have classed myself, from a letter which, at the request of some neighboring gentlemen, I wrote to one of His Majesty's Council here, of which I herewith send you a copy, with a view (since you seem inquisitive into our affairs) of letting you further into our present circumstances; from the contents of which, I imagine, you will discover what we think has certainly rendered them bad as they are, and what we believe to be the most effectual method to mend them. And in order to