As communication between Great
Britain and America was not so easy and frequent in those days as at
present, both he and his family very strongly felt the prospect of
separation. In allusion to the appointment, Eliza writes, "My father
allowed the business [of the Yearly Meeting] to proceed, but at length
said that he felt too much overwhelmed to speak sooner,--that the
subject touched his tenderest feelings, and that he felt very unfit
for such an engagement, but that the sense which had been and was,
while he was speaking, present with him, of that goodness and mercy
which had followed him all his life long and blessed him, was such
that he dared not refuse to do any little offices in his power for
those dear friends with whom he should be associated." She then gives
an account of the receipt at home of the unexpected intelligence of
this long journey, and of the calmness which eventually followed the
shock to the feelings which it occasioned. After he had set out, she
wrote an interesting account, too long to be given at full length,
of what had passed in the intervening time,--the hopes and fears, the
preparations, her father's parting with his friends and their words
of encouragement to him, with his own counsel and exhortations to his
children. A few words of his last address to them may not be out of
place:--"I earnestly desire for us all that when we shall meet again
we may all have made some progress in the heavenward journey and be
enabled to rejoice together in the sense of it.
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