All things considered, I think you have acted wisely in2 staying and learning your trade. Your dear Sister must have felt the loss of your company, and your prospect here was not the best, although you might have had a chance of doing well. You was to have nothing here but your board. I was to have found you all your clothes, mending and washing, &c., and if my life should not be prolonged (perhaps I shall not live) you will be among your dear N. P. [friends]. Was you here, if such a thing should take place, you might be led astray by bad company, which may God grant that you never may. . . . Thank you for your kindness respecting the balsam of Quito. There is none of it here, and I wish for nothing more than the balm of Gilead, the great Physician of Souls, to heal the wounds that sin has made. . . . I should like to have Mr. Allen specify in writing what he intends to do. He is very partial to you and says he never had a better boy. Once more adieu, may Heaven bless you and my dear M. E.3 The allusion to the Balsam of Quito which Lloyd had recommended to her betrays, even at that early day, a faith in advertised remedies which was ever characteristic of him. His mother's letter was written under much depression of spirits, after months of illness which had greatly shattered her. Five months later she wrote him4 of the terrible ravages which the yellow fever was then making in Baltimore, and of the happy fortune which had kept him in Newburyport and deterred him from joining her in the spring; for the youth who had taken his place had fallen a victim to the fever, with seventeen others in the same house or neighborhood. ‘A fierce ’
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his new home, caring for the younger children of the family as if he were an elder brother, and making himself always helpful.
His mother was not yet fully reconciled to his remaining in Newburyport, and again suggested his joining her in Baltimore during the following spring; but she1 left it wholly optional with him. He decided to remain in the printing-office, much to her disappointment, though she approved his choice.
On May 5, 1819, she wrote him:
The Century Company. , 1885-1889.
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