which you allude, and felt much
too strongly our advice and remarks in respect to your writing us so much
on politics. What we said was the affectionate advice of your parents,
who loved you very tenderly, and who were not unwilling you should judge
for yourself though you might differ from them. We have ever made a very
candid allowance for you, and so have all your friends, and we have never
for a moment believed we should differ a fortnight after you should come
home and converse with us. You have, in the ardor of feeling, construed
many observations in our letters as censuring you and designed to wound
your feelings, which were not intended in the remotest degree by us for
any such purpose....

"I am sorry to hear of the death of Mr. Thornton. He was a good man."

His mother was much less gentle in her reproof. I cull the following
sentences from a long letter of June 1, 1815:--

"In perfect consistency with the feelings towards you all, above
described, we may and ought to tell you, and that with the greatest
plainness, of anything that we deem improper in any part of your conduct,
either in a civil, social, or religious view. This we feel it our duty to
do and shall continue to do as long as we live; and it will ever be your
duty to receive from us the advice, counsel, and reproof, which we may,
from time to time, favor you with, with the most perfect respect and
dutiful observance; and, when you differ from us on any point whatever,
let that difference be conveyed to us in the most delicate and
gentlemanly manner. Let this be done not only while you are under age and
dependent on your parents for your support, but when you are independent,
and when you are head of a family, and even of a profession, if you ever
should be either.... I have dwelt longer on this subject, as I think you
have, in some of your last letters, been somewhat deficient in that
respect which your own good sense will at once convince you was, on all
accounts, due, and which I know you feel the propriety of without any
further observations."

On June 2, 1815, the father writes:--

"We have just received a letter from your uncle, James E.B. Finley, of
Carolina. He fears you will remain in Europe, but hopes you have so much
_amor patrice_ as to return and display your talents in raising the
military and naval glory of the nation, by exhibiting on canvas some of
her late naval and land actions, and also promote the fine arts among us.
He is,