Address:
Miss Isabella Tyler
      Partney near Spilsby
          Lincolnshire

Annotation: Capⁿ F. 1806

                            Isle of France Dec. 7. 1806

My dear demi-sister

                And so you scold and rant because
I have not written to you; but pray who has the most time,
you or me; and it is very certain, that no letter, so long even
as my thumb, nor even a postscript in your sisters letters
has ever ever come to me; and forsooth, if rights are to
measured by affections, mine is certainly the greatest, for I
love you infinitely more than you do me: this is a truth
not to be denied, and therefore I request your writings may
be regulated accordingly. There is, indeed, a report amongst
the whales in the Indian Ocean, that a scrap of a letter
from you did pass by for Port Jackson, and a flying fish
in the Pacific even said he saw it, but there is no be-
-lieving these travellers. If you will take the trouble to
give it under your hand, I will then believe that you have
written to me. A certain philosopher being informed that
his friend