him where the person was who gave him the letter. The
messengertold him the place, which was about seven miles
off, so he bid him stay, and ordering a horse to be got ready,
and two servants, away he came to me with the messenger.
Let any one judge the consternation I was in when my
messenger came back, and told me the old gentleman was not
at home, but his son was come along with him, and was just
coming up to me. I was perfectly confounded, for I knew not
whether it was peace or war, nor could I tell how to behave;
however, I had but a very few moments to think, for my son
was at the heels of the messenger, and coming up into my
lodgings, asked the fellow at the door something. I suppose
it was, for I did not hear it so as to understand it, which was
the gentlewoman that sent him; for the messenger said, ‘There
she is, sir’; at which he comes directly up to me, kisses me,
took me in his arms, and embraced me with so much passion
that he could not speak, but I could feel his breast heave and
throb like a child, that cries, but sobs, and cannot cry it out.
I can neither express nor describe the joy that touched my very
soul when I found, for it was easy to discover that part, that
he came not as a stranger, but as a son to a mother, and indeed
as a son who had never before known what a mother of his
own was; in short, we cried over one another a considerable
while, when at last he broke out first. ‘My dear mother,’ says
he, ‘are you still alive? I never expected to have seen your
face.’ As for me, I could say nothing a great while.
After we had both recovered ourselves a little, and were able
to talk, he told me how things stood. As to what I had written
to his father, he told me he had not showed my letter to his
father, or told him anything about it; that what his grandmother
left me was in his hands, and that he would do me justice to
my full satisfaction; that as to his father, he was old and infirm
both in body and mind; that he was very fretful and passionate,
almost blind, and capable of nothing; and he questioned
whether he would know how to act in an affair which was of
so nice a nature as this; and that therefore he had come himself,
as well to satisfy himself in seeing me, which he could not
restrain himself from, as also to put it into my power to make
a judgment, after I had seen how things were, whether I would
discover myself to his father or no.
This was really so prudently and wisely managed, that I found
my son was a man of sense, and needed no direction from me.
I told him I did not wonder that his father was as he had
described him, for that his head was a little touched before I
went away; and principally his disturbance was because I
could not be persuaded to conceal our relation and to live with
him as myhusband, after I knew that he was my brother; that
as he knew better than I what his father’s present condition
was, I should readily join with him in such measure as he
would direct; that I was indifferent as to seeing his father,
since I had seen him first, and he could not have told me better
news than to tell me that what his grandmother had left me
was entrusted in his hands, who, I doubted not, now he knew
who I was, would, as he said, do me justice. I inquired then
how long my mother had been dead, and where she died, and
told so many particulars of the family, that I left him no room
to doubt the truth of my being really and truly his mother.
My son then inquired where I was, and how I had disposed
myself. I told him I was on the Maryland side of the bay, at