«14th June 1825.
«Mylord,
«Permit me to assure your Lordship that I am not guilty of the
presumption of intending to inflict an annual letter upon you; and
sincerely do I regret that my thoughts cannot be open to your view
instead of these lines; as, could you know them, I venture to
believe, you would readily forgive what otherwise may appear
intrusive. Once, since I left Paris, I have presumed to trouble
your Lordship with a few lines, requesting that the manuscript I
had so cherished during twenty seven years might be returned to me.
But as it has not been your pleasure to comply with this request, I
suppose I ought to forbear a repetition of it.
«Mylord, I may perhaps not again intrude on you, never perhaps I
see you more on this side of the grave; forgive me then this once,
if I avail myself of the opportunity afforded by admiral Sutton,
who is going to Paris with the intention of leaving my eldest son
there, in order that he may attain some facility in speaking the
French language, an acquirement which will perhaps be useful to him
whatever may be his future destiny. When I had the honor of seeing
you at Paris, I felt the impropriety of trespassing upon your
Lordship's occupied time, and therefore could not venture to
explain myself on some points, in which I saw by your glance (which
language it is impossible to misunderstand) what your politeness
would kindly have concealed.
«But if, in the endeavour to promote the welfare of her child, a
mother should say a few words too much, it is, I trust, an error
that in some measure pleads its own excuse, particularly in time
like the present, when interest is _every thing_, and scarcely any
situation in which a young man may struggle through life can be
obtained, _even_ by _purchase_, unless patronage smooth the way.
«But I will not presume further to detain your attention. Let it be
permitted me only to say, Mylord, that feelings too keen to be
controled rendered the first few minutes I passed under your roof
most acutely painful. The events of seven and twenty previous years
all rushed to my recollection; from the early period when you
crossed my path like a meteor, to leave me in darkness, when you
disappeared, to that _inexpressibly_ bitter moment, when I stood in
your house an uninvited stranger, and in a character as new to
myself as perhaps unwelcome to you.
«Farewell, Mylord. May you be happy! is the deeply felt, the
earnest wish of Your Lordship's devoted and obedient servant,
«CHARLOTTE SUTTON.»