Address:
Miƒs Chappelle
M^r Arton's
    Market Place
        Barton

Annotation: Sep^t 1800

                      H.M.S. Reliance at the Nore. Sept. 25. 1800
My dear friend
          Have you received my letter of March 16. and Sept. 1
1799, and another of Sept 2. 1798? You answer yes. Then my dear friend
the last letter which I have received from you is dated September 1797
! If you think that I esteem you and value your friendship, it will
be in your power to form a judgement of the uneasineƒs I have suffered on your
account. From Thomas I learn that you are in the land of the living, and at
present on a visit at Barton. My imagination has flown after you often
and many a time, but the lords of the admiralty still keep me in confine-
-ment at the Nore. You must know, and your tender feelings have often
anticipated for me, the rapturous pleasure I promised myself on return-
-ing from this antipodean voyage, and an absence of six years; and
if I mistake not, your feeling heart will well picture my disappoint-
-ment and distreƒs, on finding my best beloved sister and the friend of
my bosom both torn from my arms by that scythe-bearing villain. It
is a shock to my spirits and the ardency of my hopes that will not
hastily be done away. I shed no tear, — the world is full enough of sor-
-row without my plaints being added to the sum; but a stupid
languor seems to have taken poƒseƒsion of me, and all the flattering
marks of attention which the friends I have already ^ ^met have honoured
me with, seem to have nothing more than a momentary effect. Oh
my sister! thy meekneƒs and benevolence, — thy resignation to the
will of fate in the great hour of diƒsolution, only shew us how
much greater is the loƒs of thee, than before we were sensible of.
Enough. – the handkerchief has paƒsed the eye, and sorrow shall
retreat back to the heart.
      As you are one of those friends whom I consider it indispen-
sibly