Corporation, are the very poorest freemen in the world. Queen Anne
granted a charter to the city, by which the daughters of a freeman
confer upon their husbands the right of voting at an election. Tradition
says, that the Queen, when at Bristol, took notice that the women were
so remarkably plain, that she conferred this boon upon them as a sort
of dower; so that whoever marries the daughter of a freeman, is himself
immediately entitled to the freedom of the city. So that the freedom of
Bristol may be gained by birth, by marriage, or by servitude. While,
however, I relate this circumstance, I do not mean to concur in the
assertion, that the women of Bristol are proverbially ugly; on the
contrary, some of them are very pretty; and I recollect that, when I was
a young man, Bristol justly boasted of having given birth to one of the
handsomest women of the age. Miss Clementina Atwood, who was a native of
Bristol, was, at the period when I knew her, universally esteemed, and
in my estimation was the most beautiful, elegant, and accomplished
female in the British dominions. I remember riding from Enford to
Bristol and back again, a distance of ninety-two miles, on the same day,
only for the chance of passing a few hours in her society; and the worst
of it was, that I was disappointed at last, as she had left Bristol for
a few days, with her friend Miss Rigg, whose mother was just deceased.
But I passed the day with her cousins, and returned home in the evening.

I now directed my attention towards the management of my farm, with
as much zeal as I had recently directed it to the concerns of the
election. My natural disposition, my taste, and my habits, all led me
to the enjoyment of domestic comforts, in a rural sphere. I was always
doatingly fond of the country, country pursuits, and a country life. The
sports of the field--hunting, shooting, &c., to me afforded the most
captivating delight. The pleasures of cultivating the soil, and
attending to the growth and progress of the crops, can only be known