It is with no exaggeration that I say an intention to emigrate for ever is, as far as worldly feelings are concerned, more analogous to quitting life than those imagine to whom we must bid adieu. It in many respects bears the same relation to death, that to sleep does to die; and the sentiment with which the emigrant prepares for his departure is far more solemn, at least I feel it so, than in every other crisis of farewell but in the last ceremonies of the deathbed.

To me, however, this sombre feeling was lightened by the consideration that I should be accompanied by my family; and I trust, when I confess that, saving a filial reminiscence of Mrs. Busby, then aged and infirm, my regret at the idea of seeking a new life in another world was not of an intense kind, I shall not be deemed insensible to the moral worth and political splendour of my native country. But even the tie in my remembrance of that venerable gentlewoman, the only parent I ever really knew, was destined to forego its hold. Towards the end of the autumn she wrote in her usual manner, for we had always continued frequent occasional correspondents, but in the conclusion of her letter there was something mournful and affecting.

She described her own fast decaying strength as a weariness of the mortal world, and a longing in her spirit for repose; and alluding to my proposed departure with my family, expressed, in a remote and delicate manner, the satisfaction it would give her to have seen me once more.