heart. Indeed my Ann thou knowest not how very dear thou art to me.
Thy joys, thy pleasures or pains, are also mine. There is between us that
sympathy which subsists between the different limbs of one body; mi-
-serably torn asunder we have indeed been, but we will re-unite, never
more, perhaps, to be seperated; and our second marriage shall be more
delightful than the first. Heaven grant that neither ambition or neceƒsity
may ever again divide us by the intervention of a trackleƒs sea.
    I think my dearest love, it would be useful to thy health to ride
on horseback in the fine weather; thy strength suffers from want of ex-
-ercise. Do not let a little expense prevent thee from any gratifica-
-tion of this sort. Buy a little horse, my love, and take the air as often
as thou canst, I am sure it will do thee good. — We will so enjoy our-
-selves when I can get a few months in the country. We will make a
tour amongst all thy friends and relations and mine, and for a little
while no expense shall stand in our way. — Adieu, my best
beloved for a time. To thy good mother and Belle remem-
-ber me most kindly, — I am a letter indebted to the former
but cannot now pay it. As for that idle thing, Belle, does she think
I will bring her any pretty feathers and ^ ^or little fishes when she has not
written me one line these live-long three years last past? No indeed,
not a rusty nail! Now I dare say she would like a speckled piece
of the coral reef upon which we were shipwrecked? or a green octagon
pebble from the top of the cloudy mountain? or a stump shell brought
up from the bottom of the sea 200 fathoms deep, by the lead? or a little
sea horse cased with horn, as big as my thumb and taken out of the
maw of a shark? or perhaps a set of Trims finger nails which he shed in
the Gulph of Carpentaria — ? — but not the least tiny bit will fall
to her lot. I have some cockles shells that weigh a hundred pounds a-
-piece, very convenient for wash-hand basins, and many "other won-
-ders too tedious to mention": — I shall see when I come home; perhaps
she may get one of them, — no, I will give her a cage full of jump-
-ing spiders as nimble as fleas and as big as small frogs: — wont
they be a curosity? [sic] everyone has nine eyes and a little tail: and
indeed they are thought by all who have seen them to be mighty curous. [sic]
    Health, my dearest love, most anxiously do I wish thee. This is now
a fine season in England — May thou be now happy in the enjoyment
of it.     Thy most affectionate Matt^w Flinders

In cross writing on this page
Kind remembrances to the Franklins, M^r Tyler and thy aunt — I am about
to learn French. The bill is inclosed for thy use if thou shouldst have any occasion for
it.