_St. Jago de Cuba._
We have received no news from the Cape, my dear friend, but it is
generally expected that it will be evacuated, as several parts of the
island have been already.
This place is full of the inhabitants of that unfortunate country,
and the story of every family would offer an interesting and pathetic
subject to the pen of the novelist.
All have been enveloped in the same terrible fate, but with different
circumstances; all have suffered, but the sufferings of each individual
derive their hue from the disposition of his mind.
One catastrophe, which I witnessed, is dreadfully impressive! I saw
youth, beauty and affection sink to an untimely grave, without having
the power of softening the bitterness of their fate.
Madame C----, a native of Jeremie, had been sent by her husband to
Philadelphia, at the beginning of the revolution, where she continued
several years, devoting all her time to improving the mind and
cultivating the talents of her only child, the beautiful Clarissa.
Sometime after the arrival of the French fleet, Madame C----, and her
daughter returned to Jeremie. She had still all the charms of beauty,
all the bloom of youth. She was received by her husband with a want of
tenderness which chilled her heart, and she soon learned that he was
attached to a woman of colour on whom he lavished all his property.
This, you may suppose, was a source of mortification to Madame C----,
but she suffered in silence, and sought consolation in the bosom of her
daughter.
When the troubles of Jeremie encreased, and it was expected every day
that it would be evacuated, Monsieur C---- resolved to remove to St.
Jago de Cuba. He sent his wife and child in one vessel, and embarked
with his mistress in another. Arriving nearly at the same time, he
took a house in the country, to which he retired with his superannuated
favourite, leaving his family in town, and in such distress that they
were often in want of bread.
Madame C----, too delicate to expose the conduct of her husband, or to
complain, concealed from her friends her wants and her grief.
A young Frenchman was deeply in love with her daughter, but his fortune
had been lost in the general wreck, and he had nothing to offer to the
object of his adoration except a heart glowing with tenderness. He made
Madame C---- the confidant of his affection. She was sensible of his
worth, and would willingly have made him the protector of her daughter,
had she not been struggling herself with all the horrors of poverty and
therefore thought it wrong to encourage his passion.
He addressed himself to her father, and this father was rich! He
lavished on his mistress all the comforts and elegancies of life,
yet refused to his family the scantiest pittance! He replied to the
proposal that his daughter might marry, but that it was impossible for
him to give her a shilling.
Clarissa heard the unfeeling sentence with calm despair. She had
just reached the age in which the affections of the heart develope
themselves. The beauty of her form was unequalled, and innocence,
candour, modesty, generosity, and heroism, were expressed with
ineffable grace in every attitude and every feature. Clarissa was
adored. Her lover was idolatrous. The woods, the dawning day, the
starry heavens, witnessed their mutual vows. The grass pressed by
her feet, the air she respired, the shade in which she reposed, were
consecrated by her presence.
Her mother marked, with pity, the progress of their mutual passion,
which she could not forbid, for her own heart was formed for
tenderness, nor could she sanction it, seeing no probability of its
being crowned with success. But the happiness of her daughter was her
only wish, and moved by her tears, her sighs, and the ardent prayers
of her lover, she at length consented to their union. They were
married and they were happy. But alas! a few days after their marriage
a fever seized Clarissa. The distracted husband flew to her father
who refused to send her the least assistance. She languished, and her
mother and her husband hung over her in all the bitterness of anguish.
The impossibility of paying a physician prevented their calling one,
till it was too late, and, ten days after she had become a wife, she
expired. I have held this disconsolate mother to my breast, my tears
have mingled with hers: all the ties that bound her to the world are
severed, and she wishes only for the moment that will put a period to
her existence, when she fondly hopes she may be again united to her
daughter. To the husband I have never uttered a word. His sorrow is
deep and gloomy. He avoids all conversation, and an attempt to console
him would be an insult on the sacredness of his grief. He has tasted
celestial joys. He has lost the object of his love, and henceforth the
earth is for him a desert.
For the brutal father there is no punishment. His conscience itself
inflicts none, for he expressed not the least regret when informed of
the fate of his daughter.
But when the story became known, the detestation his conduct excited
was so violent, that the friends of Madame C---- have caused her
to be separated from him, and obliged him to allow her a separate
maintenance. Unfortunately their interest has been exerted too late. A
few weeks sooner it might have saved her daughter.
How terrible is the fate of a woman thus dependent on a man who has
lost all sense of justice, reason, or humanity; who, regardless of his
duties, or the respect he owes society, leaves his wife to contend with
all the pains of want, and sees his child sink to an untimely grave,
without stretching forth a hand to assist the one or save the other!