great hopes, though not then fourteen. He came to see his mother without my knowledge or her's, and was infected likewise. Last of all the infant child of Michael, the child of his old age, took the disease, and though the weakest, of all the children, recovered best. I tell these actions for brevity's sake altogether, not directly in the order they happened, to satisfy the reader about the reason of the remarkable attention and favour shewed to me afterwards upon so short an acquaintance.
The fear and anxiety of Ozoro Esther, upon smaller occasions, was excessive, and fully in proportion in the greater that now existed; many promises of Michael's favour, of riches, greatness, and protection, followed every instance of my care and attention towards my patients. She did not eat or sleep herself; and the ends of her fingers were all broke out into pustules, from touching the several sick persons. Confu, the favourite of all the queen's relations, and the hopes of their family, had symptoms which all feared would be fatal, as he had violent convulsions, which were looked upon as forerunners of immediate death; they ceased, however, immediately on the eruption. The attention I shewed to this young man, which was more than overpaid by the return he himself made on many occasions afterwards, was greatly owing to a prepossession in his favour, which I took upon his first appearance. Policy, as may be imagined, as well as charity, alike influenced me in the care of my other patients; but an attachment, which providence seemed to have inspired me with for my own preservation, had the greatest share in my care for Ayto Confu.
Though
