TO MR. AND MRS. JAMES.
Coxwould, Augst. 10, 1767.
MY DEAR FRIENDS,
I but copy your great civility to me—in writing you word, that I have this moment recd. another Letter, wrote eighteen days after the date of the last from St. Iago—If our poor friend could have wrote another Letter to England, you will in course have it—but I fear from the circumstance of great hurry, and bodily disorder when she dispatch’d this she might not have time—In case it has so fallen out—I send you the contents of wt. I have recd.—and that is a melancholly history of herself and sufferings since they left Iago—continual and most violent rhumatism all the time—a fever brought on—with fits—and attended with Delirium, and every terrifying symptome—the recovery from this left her low and emaciated to a skeleton—I give you the pain of this detail with a bleeding heart—knowing how much at the same time it will affect yours—The three or four last days in her journal, leave us with hopes she will do well at last—for she is more chearful, and seems to be getting up her spirits—& health in course with it.—They have cross’d the Line—are much becalm’d—wch. with other delays, he fears, they will lose their passage to Madrass—& be some months sooner for it at Bombay—Heaven protect this worthy creature! for she suffers much, & with uncommon fortitude—She writes much to me abt. her dear friend Mrs. James in her last Packet—in truth, my good Lady, she honours & loves you from her heart—but if she did not—I should not Love her half so well myself as I do.
Adieu my dear friends—You have Very few in the world, more truely & cordially yrs.
L. Sterne.
P.S.
I have just recd. as a present from a right Honble.[[38]] a most elegant gold Snuff fabricated for me at Paris—I wish Eliza was here, I would lay it at her feet—however, I will enrich my gold Box, with her picture,—& if the Doner does not approve of such an acquisition to his pledge of friendship—I will send him his Box again—
May I presume to inclose you the Letter I write to Mrs. Draper—I know you will write yourself—& my Letter may have the honour to chaperon yours to India. Mrs. Sterne & my daughter are coming to stay a couple of months with [me], as far as from Avignion—& then return—Here’s Complaisance for you—I went 500 miles the last Spring, out of my way, to pay my wife a weeks visit—and she is at the expence of coming post a thousand miles to return it—what a happy pair!—however, en passant, she takes back sixteen hundred pds. into France with her—and will do me the honour likewise to strip me of every thing I have—Except Eliza’s Picture, Adieu.
Endorsed:—
To Mrs. James
in Gerard Street,
Soho,
London.
Free Fauconberg.