Letter 2004

[fol. 11] Calais the 19th Jan:ry 1714/15 Sir, Had not I been order’d to go on board the Yatch at Greenw:ch the Monday after I had the Honour to wait upon You at Your House, I design’d that very day to have paid You my Respects to return You my humble Thanks for Your extraordinary Favours, & to have receiv’d Yr farther commands. I wish I may get some thing worth Yr acceptance at my Return from Paris, where I am afraid I shall not soon arrive, because having the Case of My Lord Stairs Family, & Equipage on b:d the Yatch, I must go from hence to Havre de Grace, & then up the River Seine. As the Winds, w:ch have hither to detaind us here are uncertain, the Delivery of the small Parcell, You was so kind as to intrust me with, is also uncertain. But I can assure You, that when I come to Paris, I’l loose no time to wait upon Your Friend. Our stay here hath given me an Opportunity to have a transient View of the New Canal at Mardike, & of Dunkirk. as You was pleas’d to signify, that what observations I made in my Journey woud not be troublesome, I have venturd the inclos’d account, w:ch if thought worth yr Perusal & its being Communicated to some of yr Friends, I beg may not be known to come from me. Whilst You as’d me with so much Humanity & kindness at Yr House, I try’d many times, but had not the Power to do it, to acquaint You, that Yr Pupill is marry’d to [?], who loves her intirely; who cannot well be suspected to have had any other View in the Match, but to have a Wife, whom he values more than himself, who will make it his study by honest Methods to better his Circumstances to maintain her comfortably; & who most humbly begs You will be so good as to forgive his marrying her without Your Consent. He hopes, that You will be inclin’d to believe, that she hath not dispos’d of her self to disadvantage, & therefore that Yr great Goodness will dispose You to grant his Request. Permit me, Sir, earnestly to intreat You to make another, (viz) to vouchsafe to continue Your kind Care & Guardianship of her, & to keep her Marriage secret till his Return, because the disclosing of it now woud undoubtedly be prejudicial. To conclude he begs Leave to subscribe himself, Sir, Your most humble & most obet serv:t Wm Beauvoir