Richard Waverley's letter to his son upon this occasion was a
masterpiece of its kind. Aristides himself could not have made out a
harder case. An unjust monarch, and an ungrateful country, were the
burden of each rounded paragraph. He spoke of long services, and
unrequited sacrifices; though the former had been overpaid by his
salary, and nobody could guess in what the latter consisted, unless it
were in his deserting, not from conviction, but for the lucre of gain,
the Tory principles of his family. In the conclusion, his resentment was
wrought to such an excess by the force of his own oratory, that he could
not repress some threats of vengeance, however vague and impotent, and
finally acquainted his son with his pleasure that he should testify
his sense of the ill-treatment he had sustained, by throwing up his
commission as soon as the letter reached him. This, he said, was also
his uncle's desire, as he would himself intimate in due course.
Accordingly, the next letter which Edward opened was from Sir Everard.
His brother's disgrace seemed to have removed from his well-natured
bosom all recollection of their differences, and, remote as he was from
every means of learning that Richard's disgrace was in reality only the
just, as well as natural consequence, of his own unsuccessful intrigues,
the good but credulous Baronet at once set it down as a new and enormous
instance of the injustice of the existing Government.
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