CANADA. 103 



quite easy to comprehend my father's condition of mind 

 throughout this year. lie continues, in spite of all dis- 

 appointment, to importune his father, mother, and sister 

 to "be ready to come out and live under the protection of 

 my wing," and talks, so late as the autumn of 1837, of 

 having " some idea of getting out the materials of a house 

 in the following winter, to be erected in the south-west 

 corner of my Leghorn Field." Yet he had already, in July 

 of the same year, advertised his farm at Compton for sale, 

 not failing to mention in the terms his " garden of rare 

 exotic flowers ; " for he had enclosed a corner opposite the 

 house, and had cultivated with success the seeds and plants 

 which his brother had brought from Poole, and others that 

 he had collected from friends around. As this season closed 

 in, and his crops, which he had sanguinely persuaded 

 himself were better than those of his neighbours, proved 

 to be lamentable failures, his thoughts, unwillingly at first, 

 but soon more and more, began to turn to some other 

 scene and some other occupation for the living which 

 seemed to be obstinately denied to him in Canada. The 

 disastrous visit of his brother was the last straw, and the 

 back of his optimism was broken at length. During the 

 autumn he was vexed and disturbed by having to appear 

 in court to give evidence in a criminal case against one of 

 his few neighbours ; and for some weeks he was laid up 

 with acute rheumatism. On November 4, 1837, he wrote 

 a very melancholy letter to his sister Elizabeth, and, 

 after upbraiding and yet excusing himself for having in- 

 duced his brother to make so untow^ard an expedition, he 

 continues — 



"For myself, I have lately been somewhat brought 

 " down by sickness : nothing very alarming, but sufficient 

 " to disable me in a great degree from labour ; in conse- 

 " quence of which I have become very backward in my 



