The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, January 7, 1832 by Various
page 12 of 55 (21%)
page 12 of 55 (21%)
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could only address her secret prayers, divided as she was from them, by
the wide waters of the Atlantic. Her two little girls were about to be thrown upon the charity of strangers, and as no one could foresee the issue of the expedition, in which their beloved father was engaged, she could not but fancy them orphans in a foreign land, far from every relative, and exposed to the thousand mischances that lie in wait for unprotected infancy. These distressing reflections would also seem to have been heightened by the consideration that it was very uncertain whether the king's troops would be able to maintain their position at New York. Anticipating the confusion of a retreat, and the hurry of an embarkation increased by the approach of danger, must she not have shuddered at the fate of these two little innocents destitute of every claim to protection but that of helplessness. And then too, she was about to die in a foreign land! to mingle her ashes with a soil neither kindred to her heart, nor consoling in its associations. No gentle hand smoothed her dying pillow; no well known voice responded to her last sighs. What a moment for such a young and interesting woman. What agonies may we not imagine to have been her's? Her career of life, of rank, of honour, closing with circumstances so little befitting their proud claims. What horrors would we not naturally attribute to that hour of accumulating anguish, to that child, to that mother, to that wife? What wretchedness to that fatal moment which was about to sever their purest, freshest, sweetest ties? _Quite otherwise_. This admirable young woman, died with serenity and resignation. Religion shed its light upon her heart, and faith "that daughter of the skies," renewed her sinking spirit with life and hope. She fearlessly committed her infants to their father in heaven, and in |
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