Many of the letters from both sides of the Atlantic seem never to have reached their destination, owing to the disturbed state of affairs arising from the war between the two countries.
The young artist had gone in October, 1813, to Bristol, at the earnest solicitation of friends in that city, and seems to have spent a pleasant and profitable five months there, painting a number of portraits.

He refers to letters written from Bristol, but they were either never received or not preserved.

Of other letters I have only fragments, and some that are quoted by Mr.Prime in his biography have vanished utterly.
Still, from what remains, we can glean a fairly good idea of the life of the young man at that period.

His parents continually begged him to leave politics alone and to tell them more of his artistic life, of his visits to interesting places, and of his intercourse with the literary and artistic celebrities of the day.
We, too, must regret that he did not write more fully on these subjects, for there must have been a mine of interesting material at his disposal.
We also learn that there seems to have been a strange fatality attached to the little statuette of the "Dying Hercules," for, although he packed it carefully and sent it to Liverpool on June 18, 1813, to be forwarded to his parents, it never reached them until over two years later.

The superstitious will say that the date of sending may have had something to do with this.
Up to this time everything, except the attitude of England towards America, had been _couleur de rose_ to the enthusiastic young artist.