Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/178

150 had embarked at Newport, in Monmouthshire, in a little smuggling vessel that was in the roads, and had sailed for North America.

Freind simply sighed at this intelligence; then suddenly recovering himself, and pressing my hand, he said:

"I must go to America."

I replied, weeping with admiration: "I will not leave you. But what can you do?"

"Restore my only son," said he, "to virtue and his country, or bury myself with him."

Indeed, from our information, we could not doubt but he had fled thither with that horrible woman, Birton, and the other villains of the party.

The good father took leave of Lord Peterborough, who returned soon after to Catalonia; and we went to Bristol and freighted a ship for the Delaware and the bay of Maryland.

Freind, knowing these coasts to be in the heart of the English possessions, thought it right to go there, whether his son had sought concealment in the North or South.

He supplied himself with money, letters of credit, and provisions, and left a confidential servant in London, to write to him by ships that were leaving every week for Maryland or Pennsylvania.

We started. The crew, judging from the placid countenance of my friend, thought we were on an excursion of pleasure. But when he was alone with me, his sighs expressed the depth of his anguish.