The Courier which arrived this day announced your appointment in due form, saving that it left out your second name, – an error which I suppose will be corrected in the next gazette.

Your taking the College by storm is very amusing. And now you have only to get a good fortune, & then the bloody hand;

– you will probably have them both by the time you are as old as I am now.

I have tried your prescription against my annual visitor.

The dose suspended the complaint for the next day, on the third it returned; & after repeating the remedy four or five times, it ceased even to relieve it for the day. I tried bark

during the intervals, but I have been afraid of taking the prescription every other night, partly because the calomel

does not prevent the action of the laudanum

upon the biliary secretions, still more because the frequent use of cathartics would certainly bring on the old complaint,

from which I have been compleatly free, till the relaxation which this cold & the physic have produced between them, brought on a slight recurrence of it. – I went up Skiddaw yesterday – by way of an alternative, & will take every opportunity of exercise that any charitable person will afford me. I will also try the warm bath, having got possession of an old shoe, which will answer the purpose.

There has been no news as yet from Tom.

His itch of letter-writing I think will never annoy you as much as it has done me: indeed I will not fail to prevent any such indulgence of it, xx as far as my power may extend. It is a cursed propensity. – There will be many difficulties in the way of his removal; – & I am not without apprehensions that he may be more disposed to find some pretext for thinking them insuperable, than to set himself in earnest about overcoming them. – One obstacle there is which never entered into my calculations. – It appears by Gourlay’s book,

that the fees upon a grant of lands in Canada, amount to as much as the price of such lands would do in the U. States. – But it is quite plain that we must get him there if we can. Once fairly settled there, the provision for himself & his family

becomes certain, & I do not see any other course.

My long delayed journey, as it makes me too late for the spring oyster may peradventure not take place till the r in the latter months makes it appearance.

Oystrification at two o clock is a matter of more importance to me when in London, than what is called the fullness or emptiness of the town. At any season, the friends whom I wish to see will be there.

The Printer

is once more gone to sleep over my book, having printed about half the second volume. In a day or two I shall begin the chapter concerning the overthrow of the Church by the Puritans,

– one of the most important in the book & then it will soon be finished. I trust to bring out both my Colloquies, & the Tale of Paraguay

during the next season: the latter certainly, for my ways & means require an effort.

Love to Louisa – M^rs Gonne & the children. I hope Robert

is substantially better, & I wish Keswick were near enough for him to try mountain air