Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/379

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"One instance, among numbers, I am urged to communicate here, as death now equally precludes the power of bestowing, and the gratitude of acknowledging, future bounties: Captain Carver is a name known in the annals of misery, to which he was reduced by long-continued want; disease, its natural consequence, gave him access to Dr. Fothergill; and I am informed by his widow, that as often as he applied for medical relief, the doctor as often accompanied his prescription with a liberal donation. But Captain Carver was not an importunate solicitor; the mind not hardened by familiarity of refusal, or that hath not acquired, by frequent struggles, the art of suppressing its emotions, possesses that diffidence which is the inseparable associate of worth. Between diffidence and want, many were the struggles of Captain Carver, but, overcome at length by repeated acts of the doctor's generosity, a jealous suspicion of becoming troublesome, to his benefactor, determined him to prefer that want, from the deprivation of the necessaries of life, which put it out of the power of his choice; for death soon triumphs over famine. What a conflict of sullen greatness does this tragedy exhibit! When his fate was communicated to the doctor, how tender was his expression ! "If I had known his distress, he should not thus have died"!^{[note 1]}