his mind for employ, that nothing could prevent him from being
immediately carried to the Admiralty, and applying for a ship. "This
they readily promised me," he jocosely observed, soon after, to one of
his relations, "thinking it not possible for me to live."
He now went, directly, to Bath: where he was, at first, under the
necessity of being carried to the springs, and wherever else he wanted
to go; and, for several weeks afterwards, constrained to use crutches.
These, however, he at length threw aside, much sooner than his friends
at the Admiralty had expected; though it was nearly three months before
he entirely recovered the use of his limbs. In a letter which he wrote,
from this place, dated February 15, 1781, to his friend Captain Locker,
he observes that he is, thank God, very near perfectly restored; having
the complete use of all his limbs, except his left arm, of which he can
hardly tell the ailment: from the shoulder to his fingers ends felt as
if half dead, but the faculty gave him hopes that it would all go off.
He expresses his anxiety to be employed; and, as if willing to
demonstrate that his spirits were more lively than his limb, he says,
with considerable pleasantry and wit, speaking of three portraits--one
of the present Admiral George Montague, another of Sir Charles Pole, and
the third of himself, which was then painting by Mr. Rigaud as a present
for Captain Locker--"I hope, when I come to town, to see a fine _trio_
in your room. When you get the pictures, I must be in the middle; for,
God knows, without good _supporters_, I shall fall to the ground."
After the restoration of his health, he paid a visit to his worthy and
venerable father, at Burnham-Thorpe; as well as to his amiable eldest
sister, then recently married to Mr. Bolton, who resided at Wells, about
five miles distant, and other relatives and friends in the county of
Norfolk: few of whom, except his father, had ever once beheld him for
the last eleven years. The felicity of such a meeting is not to be
|