Letter 2

Archangel, 28th March, 17-- To Mrs.Saville, England How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise.

I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.

I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling.

I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.

You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.