EHEV! QVAM PROCVL A PATRIA!
PROPE LIBVRNI PORTVM, IN ITALIA
JACET SEPVLTVS.

THOMAS SECCOMBE. ACTON, May 1907.


LETTER I

BOULOGNE SUR MER, June 23, 1763.

DEAR SIR,--You laid your commands upon me at parting, to
communicate from time to time the observations I should make in
the course of my travels and it was an injunction I received with
pleasure. In gratifying your curiosity, I shall find some
amusement to beguile the tedious hours, which, without some such
employment, would be rendered insupportable by distemper and
disquiet.

You knew, and pitied my situation, traduced by malice, persecuted
by faction, abandoned by false patrons, and overwhelmed by the
sense of a domestic calamity, which it was not in the power of
fortune to repair.

You know with what eagerness I fled from my country as a scene of
illiberal dispute, and incredible infatuation, where a few
worthless incendiaries had, by dint of perfidious calumnies and
atrocious abuse, kindled up a flame which threatened all the
horrors of civil dissension.