rness lead you a step farther, my Lucy? It would be too much to
hope to see you here; and yet, if I marry Emily, it will be impossible
for me to think of returning to England.

There is a man here whom I should prefer of all men I ever saw for
you; but he is already attached to your friend Bell Fermor, who is very
inattentive to her own happiness, if she refuses him: I am very happy
in finding you think of Temple as I wish you should.

You are so very civil, Lucy, in regard to me, I am afraid of
becoming vain from your praises.

Take care, my dear, you don't spoil me by this excess of civility,
for my only merit is that of not being a coxcomb.

I have a heaviness of heart, which has never left me since I read
your letter: I am shocked at the idea of giving pain to the best parent
that ever existed; yet have less hope than ever of seeing England,
without giving up the tender friend, the dear companion, the adored
mistress; in short the very woman I have all my life been in search of:
I am also hurt that I cannot place this object of all my wishes in a
station equal to that she has rejected, and I begin to think rejected
for me.

I never before repined at seeing the gifts of fortune lavished on
the unworthy.

Adieu, my dear! I will write again when I can write more chearfully.

Your affectionate
Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 72.

To the Earl of ----.

My Lord,

Silleri, Feb. 20.

Your Lordship does me great honor in supposing me capable of giving
any satisfactory account of a country in which I have spent only a few
months.

As a proof, however, of my zeal, and the very strong desire I have
to merit the esteem you honor me with, I shall communicate from time to
time the little I have observed, and may observe, as well as what I
hear from good authority, with that lively pleasure with which I have
ever obeyed every command of your Lordship's.

The French, in the first settling this colony, seem to have had an
eye only to the conquest of ours: their whole system of policy seems
to have been military, not commercial; or only so far commercial as was
necessary to supply the wants, and by so doing to gain the friendship,
of the savages, in order to make use of them against us.

The lands are held on military tenure: every peasant is a soldier,
every seigneur an officer, and both serve without pay whenever called
upon; this service is, except a very small quit-rent by way of
acknowledgement, al