TO JAMES GRACIE, ESQ.
[James Gracie was, for some time, a banker in Dumfries: his eldest son, a fine, high-spirited youth, fell by a rifle-ball in America, when leading the troops to the attack on Washington.]
Brow, Wednesday Morning, 16th July, 1796.
My dear Sir,
It would [be] doing high injustice to this place not to acknowledge that my rheumatisms have derived great benefits from it already; but alas! my loss of appetite still continues. I shall not need your kind offer this week, and I return to town the beginning of next week, it not being a tide-week. I am detaining a man in a burning hurry.
So God bless you.
R. B.