To Miƒs Franklin Spilsby Lincolnshire
My very dear Brother [sic]
Plymouth Sound Jan^y
23^rd 1795

        I imagine you begin to think me lost or
that I have buried in Oblivion those Friends I have so often profeƒsed
an inviolable Attachment for, a Sentiment which if poƒsible now
warms my Heart with greater ardor than ever, indeed my dear
Mary when I recollect the agreable [sic] Journey I had painted out, the
pleasing Anxiety naturally excited by it and which you the Ex-
-pectation of seeing our dearest Friends and which you did me the
Honour to say flatterd [sic] me with the Idea of your largely partaking
of – after having been prevented from executing that darling Project
by one of those little Accidents that are continually croƒsing us
here and not to have wrote tho' it were only to tell the Circum-
-stances and alleviate that Anxiety you would of Course be un-
-der in not seeing me at the expected time, is almost unpardon-
-able – for some time the hurry and Confusion of so sudden a
Departure woud [sic] not allow me to think of any thing save my
immediate Duty – from Plymouth I wrote a hasty Note to
my dear friend Thomas dated December 25^th wherein how-
-ever I did not ask him to write again expecting to sail every
Day, but the publick [sic] Papers would certainly have informd [sic]
him that we yet had not left England, as such I have ex-
-pected a Letter this sometime past – I wrote to my Father
Jan^y 5^th but have got no Answer to his either, so that I
begin to look upon poor Samuel and I as two ^ ^poor orphans whom
nobody knows – for your Brothers letter. It now strikes me it
was not received, if not – good God how uncomfortable you have
been for some time – I speak my Mary as I should myself
feel was I in your Situation – as the {Case} now stands, we
cannot say with any Certainty when we shall sail, we have
been put off so often that I had formd [sic] a Resolution not to