HIS BEOTHEE'S DEATH 155 
at Tasmania, in August 1840, eleven months after he had left 
home. The black-edged letter beginning, * My dear and only 
son,' turned all his delight into mourning. He was devoted 
to his brother William, * so warm-hearted a fellow that he would 
cut his right hand off to help even a stranger.' The brother 
who had been * hourly in his thoughts ' these many days had 
been dead since the first day of the year. From the Cape he 
had written to his mother : 
So poor William has gone to Jamaica ; if you but knew 
how often I think and dream of him you would not be sur- 
prized at the sorrow I felt that he should have parted from 
you, though it is doubtless for the best. Poor Isabella ^ 
is left behind. ... I feel sure it will be a delight especially 
to my sisters to take charge of the child till my return when 
I shall consider it my own should it be better to leave it 
behind than take it to a foreign country, or should any other 
circumstances demand another father for it. [He knew 
William was out of health, though he did not believe, as some 
did, that he was threatened with consumption.] I wish 
very much that I had received that letter before, as I had 
intended to send my brother a check which I can well spare ; 
it is now too late— and I am sure money must be wanted ; 
he need not look upon it as a gift, at any rate it would be 
but a poor recompense for all the kindness I have received 
from the poor fellow's hands. The child I do hope to 
bring up, and you must tell that to my future housekeeiper 
Maria, to whom I send my best love. 
It was to this favourite sister that he unbosomed himself ; 
the poignant contrast of exchanging the hardships of ' the most 
tempestuous latitude in the worst season of the year ' for the 
calm beauty of the Derwent with Hobart set in tall trees under 
a snow-capped hill, only to find in his envied package of fifteen 
or sixteen letters the news that should make him the one 
sorrowful man in the ship : * now he is gone, and there will 
be none of my childhood's playmates when I return to talk 
over bygone times with, for he was at school my only 
companion.' 
. 1 He married Isabella Smith, April 22, 1839. 
