Letter IITo Mrs. Saville, England
Archangel, 28th March, 17-
How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost
and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have
hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom
I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and
are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy,
and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe
evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the
enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if
I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain
me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true;
but that is a poor medium
