I wrote to you per Capt. Osborne, and have since received yours of Jan. 14. per Cousin Benezet, and of March 7. per the Packet.

The Bill on Sir Alexander Grant for £30 which you so kindly sent me inclos’d, came safe to hand. I am obliged too to Mr. Hall for enabling you on a Pinch to buy it. But I am sorry you had so much Trouble about it; and the more so, as it seems to have occasioned some Disgust in you against Messrs. Foxcrofts for not supplying you with Money to pay for it. That you may not be offended with your Neighbours without Cause, I must acquaint you with what it seems you did not know, that I had limited them in their Payments to you, to the Sum of Thirty Pounds per Month, for the sake of our more easily settling, and to prevent Mistakes. This making 360 Pounds a Year, I thought, as you have no House Rent to pay yourself, and receive the Rents of 7 or 8 Houses besides, might be sufficient for the Maintenance of your Family. I judged such a Limitation the more necessary, because you never have sent me any Account of your Expences, and think yourself ill-used if I desire it; and because I know you were not very attentive to Money-matters in your best Days, and I apprehend that your Memory is too much impair’d for the Management of unlimited Sums, without Danger of injuring the future Fortune of your Daughter and Grandson. If out of more than £500 a Year, you could have sav’d enough to buy those Bills it might have been well to continue purchasing them: But I do not like your going about among my Friends to borrow Money for that purpose, especially as it is not at all necessary. And therefore I once more request that you would decline buying them for the future. And I hope you will no longer take it amiss of Messrs. Foxcrofts that they did not supply you. If what you receive is really insufficient for your Support, satisfy me by Accounts that it is so, and I shall order more.

I am much pleased with the little Histories you give me of your fine Boy, which are confirm’d by all that have seen him. I hope he will be spared, and continue the same Pleasure and Comfort to you, and that I shall ere long partake with you in it. My love to him, and to his Papa and Mama. Mrs. Stevenson too is just made very happy by her Daughter’s being safely delivered of a Son: the Mother and Child both well. Present my affectionate Respects to Mrs. Montgomery, with Thanks for her most obliging Present. It makes a nice Bag for my Ivory Chessmen. I am, as ever, Your affectionate Husband