I have the honour to be, with sincere regard and the highest esteem,
Dear sir,
Your most obedient and faithful servant,
Mulgrave.
To Vice-admiral Sir James Saumarez, K.B. &c.
Guernsey, 30th January 1808.
My dear Lord,
I am honoured with your lordship's private and confidential letter, and I cannot sufficiently express my grateful acknowledgements for the obliging manner in which your lordship has been pleased to propose to me the command in the East Indies, which I should be most happy to profit by, did the state of my health hold out any prospect of my fulfilling so important a trust with satisfaction to myself or to the benefit of my country. I am therefore, though reluctantly, compelled to decline this mark of your lordship's kindness.
I have the honour to be, &c. &c.
James Saumarez.