It is a great while since I wrote to you, and still longer since I heard from you, but I have now a particular pleasure in writing to one, who had long known and lov’d the dear good Parent I have lost. You will probably, before you receive this, have heard of my Father’s death, his illness was short and terminated in an Apoplexy, he was seldom perfectly in his senses for the last four days, but such constant calmness and composure could only have attended the death-bed of a truly good man. How unlike the ideas I had form’d to myself of Death which ’till now I had only seen at a distance and heard of with terror! The nearer his last Moment approach’d, the more his ideas seem’d elevated, and, but for those whom living he had loved with tenderness, and dying he still felt interested for, he shew’d no regret at leaving this World. I believe his many Virtues have call’d down a blessing on his family for we have all been supported under this severe afflication beyond what I could have imagined; and tho’ sorrow will for a time get the better of every other sensation I feel now that the strongest impression left by his death is the desire of imitating his Virtues in an humbler sphere of life. Oh my good Friend! may I not be proud of having had such a Father?

My dear Mothers health I hope will not have suffer’d materially, and she has every consolation to be derived from the reflection that for forty five years it was the study of her life to make the best of Husbands happy; he, in return, has shown that his attention to her ease and comfort did not end with his life; he was happily preserv’d to us so long as to be able to leave all his family in good circumstances. I fancy my Mother Bessy and I shall live at Twyford but at present no plan is settled.

May I flatter myself that you will still feel some affection for the family of your good old Friend, and let me have the happiness of hearing it from yourself? I shall get Doctor Price to send this letter. My Mother, Brother and Sisters beg to be all most kindly remember’d, believe me Dear Sir Your faithful and obliged