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Capt. George Fitzclarence to Mr. Jordan.

(Enclosed in the preceding.)

[Extract.]

"LONDON, December 2, 1814.

"MY DEAREST MOTHER:- Nothing is as yet settled when we start, but we are to go out in Admiral Burlton's ship, who goes out to take the command in India. I am now certain to join Lord Moira, but, if anything is said about it, the Duke of York will give me positive orders to join my horrid regiment. I really think we go out in the most happy way, and ought, if we choose to stay long enough, to make our fortunes. My father, poor soul, has suffered much, but is now better; his anxiety actually made him very ill, but both go out in the same ship, which is a great comfort. Although we are a great way off each other (seven hundred miles), yet I hope, should any good situation offer, to bring Henry to Calcutta. The girls have made up their minds to it very well. M did not mention anything about Fanny, but I cannot take her on board the king's ship. It will be impossible; I would not shackle myself with her. MacMahon gives me the most certain assurances of Alsop being provided for. I will do

all I can, but I cannot take Fanny out with us. It will cost £3,000 to get us out to India- where is all this to come from?"

"MY DEAR

From Mrs. Jordan.

"CARLISLE, December 5, 1814. -I shall be home by January 15th or 16th. Truly sorry am I to be under the necessity of disturbing dear Dora; sooner than do so, if I was not very unwell, I would take lodgings.

"The enclosed to the gen-l' contains a proposition, similar to the one I made to you, concerning the house, which, if it does not appear eligible to him, I shall dispose of as soon as possible, and, if not able to follow my profession, I shall immediately go abroad. God bless you!

"D. J.

"P. S. I trust in God you will exert yourself in pointing out to Fanny the absolute necessity of her prompt compliance with the proposal, in which case she shall ever find me her mother and friend." 'General Hawker, her son-in-law.

CHAPTER XII.

Sir Jonah Barrington's Allusion to a Distressing Event, Which He Declines to Relate-The Person Alluded to Heard in His Own Defence.

HE reader will have weighed the reasons in a former chapter why I inclined to question the astonishing profits of Mrs. Jordan in her profession, during her last year in England. However, Sir Jonah Barrington, estimating them at £7,000, thus follows up his statement of their amount. "The malicious representations, therefore, of her having been left straitened in pecuniary circumstances, were literally fabulous; for to the very moment of her death she remained in full possession of all the means of comfort, —nay, if she chose it, of luxury and splendour. Why, therefore, she emigrated, pined away, and expired in a foreign country (of whose language she was ignorant, and in whose habits she was wholly unversed), with every appearance of necessity, is also considered a mystery by those unacquainted with the cruel and dis

astrous circumstances which caused that unfortunate catastrophe. It is not by my pen that miserable story shall be told. It was a transaction wherein her royal friend had directly or indirectly no concern, nor did it in any way spring out of that connection. She had, in fact, only to accuse herself of benevolence, confidence, and honour. To those demerits, and to the worse than ingratitude of others, she fell a lingering, broken-hearted victim."

And

It is impossible to make either a truer or more objectionable statement than the preceding. it resulted from a wish to relieve a most generous and noble mind from the aspersions cast upon it. But Sir Jonah goes further, and in very delicate language acquits her sons, by the connection referred to, of any share in the event which he so properly deplores. There is a mode, of which Sir Jonah has availed himself with professional skill, of declining to tell a story, at the very time when you are hinting the whole of it, and revealing the person whom you accuse, without naming him, by describing sufficiently those whom you intend to acquit. He has withdrawn his noble friend and his children; he has told us of "the punctilious honour and integrity of General Hawker," who

had married one of Mrs. Jordan's daughters, by Sir Richard Ford. In 1827 Sir Jonah, and everybody else who was at all interested, knew that Mr. Alsop, who married the eldest, or Miss Jordan, had died in India, and that the unfortunate and misled woman herself had perished miserably in America. He, therefore, in fact, most distinctly pointed out the offender, whom he accuses of betraying confidence, forfeiting his honour, and repaying benevolence with ruin.

The gentleman thus shadowed out, rather than drawn, is unknown personally to me, and will probably remain so he must bear as

much of

He once

this accusation as he cannot throw off. made a statement of that miserable story which Sir Jonah's pen would not tell, and submitted it to a liberal and enlightened friend, in whose opinion he wished to stand clear, at least of everything but his misfortunes. The reader shall, in a few minutes, have it in substance as I perused it.

Before his explanation is read, I must take the liberty to remark upon the luxury and splendour, of which a picture has been drawn by Sir Jonah Barrington, and which, as far as the royal bounty was or could be made applicable to the dear lady's use, there is not the slightest reason to question.

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