18th April.—Grande River, 4 miles from Port Louis.—What a change in my feelings since I wrote last. Oh! what a relief. Here I sit in a pretty quiet pavilion writing, while my beloved child sleeps by my side. My child! What a flood of new emotions the very name produces. It appears as if I never felt or loved till now. I am very certain if I could describe the extent of what I feel, even you would doubt my being in my right mind; unless you could take into consideration the desolation of my heart when it came to light it up with a pure and imperishable affection. Would you could see it at this moment! for if I tell you how lovely it is, you must suppose it only exists in a doting mother's credulity. Before I saw it, I heard the whisper, ‘What a beautiful infant,’ and forgot I had given it life at the utmost peril of mine own, for truly it was all but lost.

It is indeed wonderful to myself, the renovation of my powers; the long and oppressive misery I endured alike exhausted my mind and body, made the present intolerable and the future terrible. The very power of walking about is so new and delightful. 'Tis true I am weak, but what of this in comparison with the past, and very few women are able to do half as much as I have done.