Iviii 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
To Mr. WM. DUNCAN. 
Gray^s Ferry, March 26, 1805. 
“ I received your letter of January 1, sometime about the be- 
ginning of February \ and wrote the same evening very fully ; but 
have heard nothing in return. Col. S. desires me to tell you to be 
in no uneasiness, nor part with the place to a disadvantage on his 
account. His son has been with me since January, I told you in 
my last of the thinness of my school : it produced me the last quar- 
ter only twenty-six scholars ; and the sum oi fifteen dollars was all 
the money I could raise from them at the end of the term. I im- 
mediately called the trustees together, and, stating the affair to 
them, proposed giving up the school. Two of them on the spot 
offered to subscribe between them one hundred dollars a year, ra- 
ther than permit me to go ; and it was agreed to call a meeting of 
the people : the result was honourable to me, for forty-eight scholars 
were instantly subscribed for ; so that the ensuing six months my 
school will be worth pretty near two hundred dollars. So much 
for my affairs. » 
I have never had a scrap from Scotland since last summer ; 
but I am much more anxious to hear from you. I hope you have 
weathered this terrible winter ; and that your heart and your limbs 
are as sound as ever. I also most devoutly wish that matters could 
be managed so that we could be together. This farm must either 
be sold, or let ; it must not for ever be a great gulf between us. I 
have spent most of my leisure hours this winter in writing the “ Fo- 
resters,’’ a poem descriptive of our journey. I have brought it up 
only to my shooting expedition at the head of the Seneca Lake ; 
and it amounts already to twelve hundred lines. I hope that when 
you and I meet, it will afford you more pleasui’e than any of my 
productions has ever done. The two nondescript birds* which I 
* One of these birds was the Canada Jay, (Am. Orn. vol. 3, p. 33.) which was known to 
naturalists. 
