W1/6549

Samuel Whitbread II, Paris, to Elizabeth Grey. Marked no 4

21 May 1787

From: 1787 To: 1787

My dear Bessy I am at this instant in the most inconceivable vexation. A letter I received from Mary yesterday, dated the fifteenth, informs that no news had then arrived from me in London. The Evening that I arrived at Calais I wrote to my Father & to you, & confided the letters to the Captain with whom we had passed, he was to sail the next morning & promised faithfully to put them in the Post at Dover. the Thief I fear lost or forgot them. & you will have taxed me with Neglect, Breach of Promise & an Hundred other things of which I am innocent. I write these few lines to invalidate all these charges, & to assure You that I was not then, nor ever shall be, negligent, or unmindful of my promises to you. I wrote first from London, then from Calais, & lastly from hence. to prevent your supposing for the future, that I have not written, when I ought to have done, I shall number my letters; & then you will know when to blame the mistakes of the Post, & when me. I hope however the Numbers will not run very high, & that I shall be able to shake you by the Hand before the day marked in the little almanack. be that as it may, & let that pleasure come when it will, I shall think it more than a sufficient recompense for every thing I may have felt, or any length of time I may have been absent. I can still say nothing of our departure from Paris, or our subsequent route; As my Father had not received mine from Calais, I have had no letter from him except the one I mentioned in my last. Mary only says that he is in low Spirits at not having heard from me. otherwise all vastly well. I said I would not write to Charles yet, but I must by this or the next mail, I can refrain no longer. Oh! how I long for Tuesday, it must bring me a letter from my Father about my stay abroad & may bring me one from you. It is the earliest that a letter could arrive from Fallodon, & you see I give you the credit of being empressee. We are all three well; & have been today to see Versailles, & concluded our Evening with Richard; a bad conclusion it was the Old Lady will say for a Sunday. but to make amends, you may tell her I had infinitely rather have been at Fallodon reading a Sermon, than hearing Clairval in Blondel, at Paris. You shall hear from me on Thursday if I receive a letter from my Father. so You shall if I do not; the information of my disappointment will furnish a pretext for the greatest pleasure I now experience; that of writing to You. Adieu. my best remembrances at Fallodon. Adieu my dearest Bessy, depend, depend upon me, I am & ever shall remain Most sincerely & affectionately Your's & only Your's S. Whitbread

item

Whitbread, Samuel II,
Grey, Elizabeth,
Whitbread, Samuel I,
Punch,
Nesfield, William,
Clairval

Paris, Calais, Fallodon, Versailles, postal service, travel, theatres