B-163-20
Dunkirk, 5 th mo 13th 1792
My Dear Children, Thomas & Charity
I have long intend'd to give
you some token of Paternal simpathy on the removal of
your dear little engaging Tomy, but many intervening objects has
hitherto prevented me. I have not the least apprehension that this
delay will be by you imputed to a want of parental tenderness
or any diminution of that affection which I may say unceasingly
flows to every branch of my dear family, both natural &
ingraft'd; on hearing of the trying scene you had passed through
we became partaker in your suffering, I believe as far as
was mete, under the consideration that it was He who rules
and
Heaven and in ^amongst the Children of Men, so far as they
are obedient to the dictates of his law; who gives and takes away,
and may we under every dispensation of his Providence be
enabled to say "blessed be his name". nature demanded the sim=
=pathehic tear to be mingled with yours in the deprivation of one
of the tenderest pledges of conjugal affection; yet on the part of the
dear babe, it was rather to me a time of secrete joy, that it
I think
was delivered from the agonizing pain that it suffer'd which^must
seem to you who are the greatest sharers in the affliction, be
attended with more poignant sorrow, than that of its releasement
there from; and now dear Children as those trials are permitted
perhaps for our good, let us endeavour to proffit thereby, remember-
ing
