extremely kind and good-natured, and I am sure
will exert herself to serve us, and if this can be accomplished I
shall be haunted by one anxiety the less.

Henry is too young and too handsome to be doing nothing but
lounging about the streets of London, and even if he should be
ordered to the Indies, it is something to feel that he is no longer
aimless and objectless in life--a mere squanderer of time, without
interest, stake, or duty, in this existence. I am sure this news
will pacify you, and atone for the day's delay in this letter
reaching you.

[My youngest brother Henry had a passionate desire to be a sailor, and
never exhibited the slightest inclination for any other career. Admiral
Lake, who was a very kind friend of my father's and mother's, knowing
this to be the lad's bent, offered, on one occasion, to take charge of
him, and have him trained for his profession under his own supervision.
Such, however, was my mother's horror of the sea, and dread of losing
her darling, if she surrendered him to be carried from her to Nova
Scotia, whither I think Admiral Lake was bound when he offered to take
my brother with him, that she induced my father to decline this most
friendly and advantageous offer. Henry never after that exhibited the
slightest preference for any other profession, and always said, "They
may put me at a plow-tail if they like." He went through Westminster
School, after a previous training at Bury St. Edmunds, not otherwise
than creditably; but a very modest estimate of his own capacity made him
beg not to be sent to Cambridge, where he said he was sure he should
only waste money, and do himself and us no credit. (The bitter
disappointment of my brother John's failure there had made a deep
impression upon him.) Finally it was decided that he should go into the
army, and the friendly interest of Sir John Macdonald and the liberal
price Mr. Murray gave me for my play of "Francis I." enabled me to get
him a commission; it was the time when they were still purchasable. My
poor mother, unable to refuse her consent to this second favorable
opportunity of starting him in life, acquiesced in his military, though
she had thwarted his naval, career, and was well content to see her
boy-ensign sent over with his troops to Ireland. But from Ireland his
regiment was ordered to the West Indies, and after his departure thither
she never again saw him in her life.]