440 HENRY LAURENS [1766. 



and one of those two had been exceedingly insolent. I encouraged 

 and pressed him to put a little rice in the ground, even at that 

 late day (5th or 6th July) ; and he promised to do so the day 

 following. 



The house, or rather hovel, that he lives in, is extremely con- 

 fined, and not proof against the weather. He has not proper 

 assistance to make a better, and from its situation it is very hot, 

 the only disagreeably hot place that I found in East Florida : but 

 it should be remarked, that the weather had been uncommonly 

 temperate. His provision of grain, flesh, and spirits, is scanty, 

 even to penury, the latter article very much so. His own health 

 very imperfect. He had the fever, when I was first with him, and 

 looked very poorly the second visit. I am determined, by the next 

 conveyance, to send him a little rum, wine, sugar, tea, cheese, 

 biscuit, and other trifles, and charge the small amount to your 

 account ; though I would most freely give him the whole, but for 

 fear that you should take it amiss. 



Possibly, sir, your son, though a worthy, ingenious man, may not 

 have resolution, or not that sort of resolution, that is necessary to 

 encounter the difficulties incident to, and unavoidable in his present 

 state of life. You and I, probably, could surmount all those hard- 

 ships without much chagrin. I very believe that I could. But, at 

 the same time, I protest that I should think it less grievous to dis- 

 inherit my own son, and turn him into the wide world, if he was of 

 a tender and delicate frame of body and intellects, as yours seems 

 to be, than to restrict him, in my favour, just in the state that 

 your son is reduced to. This is no doubt more than ever you 

 apprehended ; and admitting that my account is in part erroneous, 

 (which I do not admit, meaning to speak nothing but truth,) yet 

 the general outlines of the foregoing description must affect and 

 grieve you. But it is by no means my design, or intention, to 

 compass any particular end by colouring too strongly. In fact, 

 according to my ideas, no colouring can do justice to the forlorn 

 state of poor Billy Bartram. A gentle, mild young man, no 

 wife, no friend, no companion, no neighbour, no human inhabitant 

 within nine miles of him, the nearest by water, no boat to come at 

 them, and those only common soldiers seated upon a beggarly spot 

 of land, scant of the bare necessaries, and totally void of all the 

 comforts of life, except an inimitable degree of patience, for which 



