at once, hath driven all despair out of my mind, and hath filled it
with the most sanguine, and, at the same time, the most reasonable
hopes of making a comfortable provision for yourself and my dear
children. In the first place, then, he will advance me a sum of money
to pay off all my debts; and this on a bond to be repaid only when I
shall become colonel of a regiment, and not before. In the next place,
he is gone this very morning to ask a company for me, which is now
vacant in the West Indies; and, as he intends to push this with all
his interest, neither he nor I have any doubt of his success. Now, my
dear, comes the third, which, though perhaps it ought to give me the
greatest joy, such is, I own, the weakness of my nature, it rends my
very heartstrings asunder. I cannot mention it, for I know it will
give you equal pain; though I know, on all proper occasions, you can
exert a manly resolution. You will not, I am convinced, oppose it,
whatever you must suffer in complying. O my dear Amelia! I must suffer
likewise; yet I have resolved to bear it. You know not what my poor
heart hath suffered since he made the proposal. It is love for you
alone which could persuade me to submit to it. Consider our situation;
consider that of our children; reflect but on those poor babes, whose
future happiness is at stake, and it must arm your resolution. It is
your interest and theirs that reconciled me to a proposal which, when
the colonel first made it, struck me with the utmost horror; he hath,
indeed, from these motives, persuaded me into a resolution which I
thought impossible for any one to have persuaded me into. O my dear
Amelia! let me entreat you to give me up to the good of your children,
as I have promised the colonel to give you up to their interest and
your own. If you refuse these terms we are still undone, for he
insists absolutely upon them. Think, then, my love, however hard they
may be, necessity compels us to submit to them. I know in what light a
woman, who loves like you, must consider such a proposal; and yet how