254 LETTEBS TO GILBBBT WHITE 



long & lingering an Illness upon me, that I have had no heart to 

 answer my Correspondents ; & thought it a hard Duty to settle 

 even a necessary Business wth my Pen. I have had a constant 

 Cough, wth little Spirit, & continual Lassitude of Body as well 

 as Mind : and tho' I have had ye chearfull Interposition of a 

 Visit from my Brother Will : Young & my Nephew the Lieu- 

 tenant, yet I have been obliged to refrain from the agreeable 

 Parties that they have been engaged in. I made an Effort to 

 get to Church, but I was worse by it, so I have been a Truant 

 & a Prisoner very much. I am now better again, & shd have 

 been at Church Today, as I was yesterday, if a Storm of wind 

 & Rain had not kept me at home thro' fear. Mrs Mulso has 

 a Return of her bad Cough, & is but poorly, so that we are 

 viiserahle Mowls (as ye family Phrase is :) Tom : would derive 

 it from melancholy Owls ! Tom loves Etymology. We have lost 

 our Visitors : After application for some proper Station, Adml 

 Young is order'd to the meanest, most unwholesome, & least 

 profitable of All ; the Leward Islands : Billy is sent third Lieu- 

 tenant, whereas he was first to Sr Peter Dennis. The family 

 are in the utmost SoUicitude, because of ye Climate ; & the poor 

 Youth, who knows that his Father sollicited Command, only for 

 the sake of promoting him, is in ye deepest Concern that Ld 

 Sandwich should give him so dangerous an Employ; wth the 

 farthur Vexation of thinking that he has almost put it out of 

 his Power to serve him by putting 2 Lts over his Head. How- 

 ever ye Adml wth his constant Spirit, did not think of a Refusal : 



He accepted it immediately, & Ld S h, who knew that he 



had done all he could to defeat his first Purpose in going, was 

 so favourable as to promise that Billy should not return without 

 a Command. My Ld may very likely be out of his own Com- 

 mand before three Years are at an End. Thus Matters stand : 

 & the Commission has been wetted by many Tears, except of 

 those who must primarily stand the Peril. 



My Sister Chapone's Vol :* is come forth under ye Conduct 

 of the alert Mr Dilly. She made her Bargain for this, & it is 

 as good as the former was bad ; She secures £260. So that, 

 calculating the 3 Voll : at £100 each, She is well off. We all 

 abuse her this Time for cheating the Public ; when her Work 

 was inestimable. She was ill-used. However, the Work has not 

 ye Merit indeed of general Use, yet there is Merit in it. She 

 has a Slap at Ld Chesterfield, & has managed it happily & 

 appositely to her Subject. It is well my Lord is not alive ; He 

 would begin to complain with Lewis ye 14th, that the Ladies 

 armed against him. 



Our Convocation has spoken, & our Dr Butler has been a 



♦ " Miscellanies in Prose and Verse." 



