longer dispirited nor depressed; a faint flickering of hope now burned
within me, and I felt that, even to the vulgar stare of curiosity, I
could present the steady gaze of one whose vindication might one day be
pronounced. I had but touched the deck with my foot when I was clasped
in a strong embrace, and Polly's voice, as she kissed me, cried, "My own
dear, dear boy; my own long-lost child!"

Raper's arms were around me too; and another that I knew not, a
white-haired man, old and sorrow-stricken, but noble-looking, grasped my
hand in his, and said,--

"His father, every inch of him!"

Poor MacNaghten! he had come from fourteen years of imprisonment to
devote his first moment of liberty to bless and embrace me.

Oh! you who have known what it is to be rescued from death when every
hope of life had left you; who have from the storm-tossed raft watched
the sail as it came nearer and nearer, and at last heard the loud
cheer that said, "Be of good courage--a moment more and we will be with
you!"--even you, in that moment of blissful agony, cannot sound the
depth of emotion which was mine, as, throwing off the stain of the
felon, I stood forth in the pride of my guiltlessness, able to say
to the world, See how you have wronged me! See how, confounding the
weakness and the folly of the human heart with direct and actual
criminality, you have suffered the probable or the possible to usurp the
place of the inevitably true; have been so carried away by prejudice
or by passion as to sentence an innocent man!--see, I say, that your
judgments are fallible and your tests are weak; and bethink you that all
you can do hereafter in atonement of your error can never erase the deep
welt of the fetter on his limb, or the more terrible brand that stamped
"guilty" on his name. If you cannot be always just, be sometimes
merciful; distrust, at least, the promptings that disposed you to
condemn, and say to your heart, "Good God, if this man were to prove
innocent!"

I am now wealthy and rich. Years of prosperity have rolled over
me,--years of tranquil happiness and sincere enjoyment. There is not
a day on which I have not to thank Heaven for blessings of health
and vigor, for the love of kind hearts, and for the affection of many
benevolent natures. I know and I acknowledge that these are more than
the recompense of any sorrows I have suffered; and in my daily walk of
life I try to aid those who suffer, to console affliction, and to c