His brow became clouded and
his mind seemed occupied with deep reflection.
This behaviour of my father, together with the continued noisy mirth
of my brother and sisters, gave me considerable pain. I felt as if,
in the sad news of my mother's death, I had over-acted my part in the
feeling I had shown, and the sacrifice I had made in quitting my ship.
On explaining to my father, in private, the motives of my conduct, I
was not successful. He could not believe that my mother's death was
the sole cause of my return to England. I stood many firm and angry
interrogations as to the possible good which could accrue to me by
quitting my ship. I showed him the captain's handsome certificate,
which only mortified him the more. In vain did I plead my excess
of feeling. He replied with an argument that I feel to have been
unanswerable--that I had quitted my ship when on the very pinnacle of
favour, and in the road to fortune. "And what," said he, "is to become
of the navy and the country, if every officer is to return home when
he receives the news of the death of a relation?"
In proportion as my father's arguments carried conviction, they did
away, at the same time, all the good impressions of my mother's dying
injunction. If her death was a matter of so little importance, her
last words were equally so; and from that moment I ceased to think of
either. My father's treatment of me was now very different from what
it had ever been during my mother's lifetime.
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