I have sent under his Right Honours frank, a packet to you, which I will beg you to send to Osiris, its shape making it unfit for the twopenny post, & its palpable contents somewhat too temptatious (if there be such a word) for that conveyance.

My brother Tom sails on Monday next for Quebec, – to look out a place for his family in Upper Canada. He has a letter from the Colonial Office for Sir Peregrine Maitland,

& by mere accident obtains one in this place to the person who is employed under Sir P. in allotting the grants of land there.

His purpose is to return in the autumn, & remove his household thither this time next year. As you may well suppose this presses heavily upon my spirits, as any event must needs do which can only be reconciled to us by necessity, – & absolutely necessary this is. – His wife has a friend & relation at Quebec

, who is likely to be very useful to them.

I do not recollect whether I thanked you for the French blue

– upon the merits of which I will report when my daughter instructs me. Send me, I pray you, some money pro necessitatibus meis.

I have workmen employed in building outhouses, the cost of which is to be deducted from my rent, but the outlay for which I must advance. The next Q.R. will cover this & my domestic expences for some time.

And I count upon the B of the Church

– at which I am working doggedly, – for my travelling expences, & other calls. – Gifford I suppose continues as ill as your last notice of him stated; – he would otherwise have replied to my question whether he chose to have a paper upon the state of Spain.

Our weather here is delightful, & has long been so. – Pray send me some vegetable marrow-seeds, – it is time they were in the ground. If you were here I would feed you with that food which mortals call laver,

– its Olympian name I know not. A barrel arrived last week, which I can find no one to partake with me. Even Cuthbert declares vehemently against it, & says “he hates it, it is so dirty.”

- I wish I were London, – because there I should the sooner escape from it, & its exhausting round of engagements. But my book must be finished first, – & like every thing else it grows under my hands. Alas, my labours are like the widows cruise,

& not my resources. And two months absence from home, will xxx cost not only their expences but the loss of what I might have earned during that time. However I am still able & willing, – tho too evidently less alert than I was in former days. That is – I compose much more slowly: not for lack of matter, – but because I proceed with more consideration. – You must come down this year, were it for no other reason but to mercurialize

me.