son had
been her husband's friend, and, his probity and disinterestedness being
well known, she intrusted him with legal powers to sell this estate.
This commission was punctually performed, and the purchase-money was
received. In order to confer on it the utmost possible security, he
rolled up four bills of exchange, drawn upon opulent, merchants of
London, in a thin sheet of lead, and, depositing this roll in a leathern
girdle, fastened it round his waist, and under his clothes; a second set
he gave to me, and a third he despatched to Mr. Keysler, by a vessel
which sailed a few days before him. On our arrival in this city, we
found that Keysler had received those transmitted to him, and which he
had been charged to keep till our arrival. They were now produced, and,
together with those which I had carried, were delivered to Watson. By
him they were joined to those in the girdle, which he still wore,
conceiving this method of conveyance to be safer than any other, and, at
the same time, imagining it needless, in so short a journey as remained
to be performed, to resort to other expedients.

"'The sum which he thus bore about him was no less than ten thousand
pounds sterling. It constituted the whole patrimony of a worthy and
excellent family, and the loss of it reduces them to beggary. It is gone
with Watson, and whither Watson has gone it is impossible even to guess.

"'You may now easily conceive, sir, the dreadful disasters which may be
connected with this man's fate, and with what immeasurable anxiety his
family and friends have regarded his disappearance. That he is alive can
scarcely be believed; for in what situation could he be placed in which
he would not be able and willing to communicate some tidings of his fate
to his family?

"'Our grief has been unspeakably aggravated by the suspicions which Mrs.
Maurice and her friends have allowed themselves to admit. They do not
scruple to insinuate that Watson, tempted by so great a prize, has
secretly embarked for England, in order to obtain payment for these
bills and retain the money for his own use.

"'No man was more impatient of poverty than Watson, but no man's honesty
was more inflexible. He murmured at the destiny that compelled him to
sacrifice his ease, and risk his life upon the ocean in order to
procure the means of subsistence; and all the property which he had
spent the best part of his life in collecting had just been ravished
away from him by the