in
the West Indies, had married the heiress of a wealthy planter. By this lady he
had an only child, George Staunton, the unhappy young man who has been so often
mentioned in this narrative. He passed the first part of his early youth under
the charge of a doting mother, and in the society of negro slaves, whose study
it was to gratify his every caprice. His father was a man of worth and sense;
but as he alone retained tolerable health among the officers of the regiment he
belonged to, he was much engaged with his duty. Besides, Mrs. Staunton was
beautiful and wilful, and enjoyed but delicate health; so that it was difficult
for a man of affection, humanity, and a quiet disposition, to struggle with her
on the point of her over-indulgence to an only child. Indeed, what Mr. Staunton
did do towards counteracting the baneful effects of his wife's system, only
tended to render it more pernicious; for every restraint imposed on the boy in
his father's presence, was compensated by treble license during his absence. So
that George Staunton acquired, even in childhood, the habit of regarding his
father as a rigid censor, from whose severity he was desirous of emancipating
himself as soon and absolutely as possible.
    When he was about ten years old, and when his mind had received all the
seeds of those evil weeds which afterwards grew apace, his mother died, and his
father, half heart-broken, returned to England. To sum up her imprudence and
unjustifiable indulgence, she had contrived to place a considerable part of her
fortune at her son's exclusive control or disposal, in consequence of which
management, George Staunton had not been long in England till he learned his
independence, and how to abuse it. His father had endeavoured to rectify the
defects of his education by placing him in a well-regulated seminary. But
although he showed some capacity for learning, his riotous conduct soon became
intolerable to his teachers. He found means (too easily afforded to all youths
who have certain expectations) of procuring such a command of money as enabled
him to anticipate in boyhood the frolics and follies of a more mature age, and,
with these accomplishments, he was returned on his father's hands as a
profligate boy, whose example might ruin a hundred.
    The elder Mr. Staunton, whose mind, since his wife's death, had been tinged
with a melancholy, which certainly his son's conduct did not tend to dispel, had
taken orders, and was inducted by his brother