Flood had gone to Oxford some time before.

The one or two companions whom Burke mentions in his letters are only shadows of names.

The mighty Swift died in 1745, but there is nothing of Burke's upon the event.

In the same year came the Pretender's invasion, and Burke spoke of those who had taken part in it in the same generous spirit that he always showed to the partisans of lost historic causes.
Of his own family Burke says little, save that in 1746 his mother had a dangerous illness.

In all my life, he writes to his friend, I never found so heavy a grief, nor really did I well know what it was before.
Burke's father is said to have been a man of angry and irritable temper, and their disagreements were frequent.