Richard Waverley's letter to his son upon this occasion was a masterpiece
of its kind. Aristides himself could not have made out a harder case. An
unjust monarch and an ungrateful country were the burden of each rounded
paragraph. He spoke of long services and unrequited sacrifices; though
the former had been overpaid by his salary, and nobody could guess in
what the latter consisted, unless it were in his deserting, not from
conviction, but for the lucre of gain, the Tory principles of his family.
In the conclusion, his resentment was wrought to such an excess by the
force of his own oratory, that he could not repress some threats of
vengeance, however vague and impotent, and finally acquainted his son
with his pleasure that he should testify his sense of the ill-treatment
he had sustained by throwing up his commission as soon as the letter
reached him. This, he said, was also his uncle's desire, as he would
himself intimate in due course.
Accordingly, the next letter which Edward opened was from Sir Everard.
His brother's disgrace seemed to have removed from his well-natured bosom
all recollection of their differences, and, remote as he was from every
means of learning that Richard's disgrace was in reality only the just as
well as natural consequence of his own unsuccessful intrigues, the good
but credulous Baronet at once set it down as a new and enormous instance
of the injustice of the existing government.
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