Inattentive to every other subject, Dr. Beaumont
perceived that he was roused by the name of Walter De Vallance, and
therefore led Eustace to describe his present situation. The tortures of
a guilty conscience, added to his constitutional timidity, had totally
extinguished those faint beams of hope and ambition which led him, in
every previous change of affairs, to project his own security or
advancement. To usurpers and mal-contents of every description he
thought he might either be useful or formidable; but from the returning
King, welcomed with rapture by a repentant nation, a versatile traitor,
who had betrayed the counsels of the royal martyr, could not expect even
mercy. Too well known both for his rank and his provocations, to hope to
shelter in obscurity, he had no resource but to fly to some distant
land; and he proposed retreating to those colonies in America which were
peopled under the influence of republican principles. But he had not
proceeded many stages from London before he fell sick.
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