_23d_. A functionary of the general government at Washington writes me,
to bespeak my favorable interest for the wayward son of a friend. Arwin,
for I will call him by this name, was the son of a kind, intelligent,
and indulgent father, dwelling in the District of Columbia, who had
spared nothing to fit him for a useful and honorable life. The young man
also possessed a handsome person, and agreeable and engaging manners and
accomplishments. But his love for the coarser amusements of the world
and its dissipations, absorbed faculties that were suited for higher
objects. As a last, resort, he was commended to some adventurous
gentleman engaged in the fur trade on the higher Missouri; where, it was
hoped, the stern realities of life would arrest his mind, and fix it on
nobler pursuits. But a winter or two in those latitudes appeared to have
wrought little change. He came to Mackinack, on his way back to
civilized life, late in the fall of 1834, exhausted in means, poor and
shabby in his wardrobe, and evidently not a pilgrim from the "land of
steady habits.
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