Chapter 131

Arlington Street, March 31, 1778. (page 181)

I did think it long, indeed, dear Sir, since I heard from you, and am very sorry the gout was the cause. I hope after such long persecution you will have less now than you apprehend. I should not have been silent myself, had I had any thing to tell you that you would have cared to hear.

Politics have been the only language, and abuse the only expression of the winter, neither of which are, or deserve to be, inmates of your peaceable hermitage. I wish, however, they may not have grown so serious as to threaten every retreat with intrusion! I will let you know when I am settled at Strawberry-hill, and can look over your kind collections relating to Mr. Baker. He certainly deserves his place in the Biographia, but I am not surprised that you would not submit to his being instituted and inducted by a Presbyterian. In troth, I, who have not the same zeal against dissenters, do not at all desire to peruse the History of their Apostles, which are generally very uninteresting.

YOU must excuse the shortness of this, in which, too, I have been interrupted: my nephew is as suddenly recovered as he did last time; and, though I am far from thinking him perfectly in his senses, a great deal of his disorder is removed, which, though it will save me a great deal of trouble, hurries me at present, and forces me to conclude.