Your brother has this moment brought me a letter from you, full of your good-natured concern for the Genoese.  I have not time to write you any thing but short paragraphs, as I am in the act of writing all my letters and doing my business before my journey.  I can say no more now about the affair of your secretary.  Poor Mrs. Gibberne has been here this morning almost in fits about her son.  She brought me a long letter to you, but I absolutely prevented her sending it, and told her I would let you know that it was my fault if you don’t hear from her, but that I would take the answer upon myself.  My dear Sir, for her sake, for the silly boy’s, who is ruined if he follows his own whims, and for your own sake, who will have so much trouble to get and form another, I must try to prevent your parting.  I am persuaded, that neither the fatigue of writing, nor the indignation of going to sea are the boy’s true motives.  They are, the smallness of his allowance, and his aversion to waiting it table, For the first, the poor woman does not expect that you should put yourself to any inconvenience; she only begs that you will be so good as to pay him twenty pounds a-year more, which she herself will repay to your brother; and not let her son know that it comes from her, as he would then refuse to take it.  For the other point, I must tell you, my dear child, fairly, that in goodness to the poor boy, I hope you will give it up.  He is to make his fortune in your way of life, if he can be so lucky, It will be an insuperable obstacle to him that he is with you in the light of a menial servant.  When you reflect that his fortune may depend upon it, I am sure you will free him from this servitude, Your brother and I, you know, from the very first, thought that you should not insist upon it.  If he will stay with you on the terms I propose, I am sure, from the trouble it will save yourself, and the ruin from which it will save him, you will yield to this request; which I seriously make to you, and advise you to comply with.  Adieu!

(1090) The proclamation was dated the 1st of August, and offered a reward of thirty thousand pounds for the young Prince’s apprehension.  He left the island of Belleisle on the 13th of July, disguised in the habit of a Student of the Scots college at Paris, and allowing his beard to grow.-E.

(1091) Captain Brett was the same officer who, in Anson’s expedition, had stormed Paita.  His ship was called the Lion.  After a well-matched fight of five or six hours, the vessels parted, each nearly disabled.-E.

(1092) Widow of Francis Chute, Esq.

434 Letter 177
To The Rev. Thomas Birch.(1093)
Woolterton 15th [Aug.] 1745