Letter from Warren Hastings, Daylesford House, to Sir Isaac Heard, 1795 December 21 : autograph manuscript signed.

Thanking him for the parcel which had just arrived; saying "By a mistake of the coach, We have but this instant received it; so that I can say nothing yet of its intrinsic merits : but from our implicit confidence in your taste, and from the knowledge we already have of the superior talents of your friend, Mr. Webb, whom you announce as the author of one of the poems (I don't know whether he is of both) We are sure of deriving great entertainment from it. We want it, & the subject of Griselda is not ill suited to the gloom which the weather casts over our evenings - So great was our deference to your judgment, that the first thing that we read for our common amusement after your departure, and my return from town was Chaucer's original tale of Griseld, and were pleased with her, clad as she was in his old & faded garments;" expressing his concern for the illness of Lady Heard and adding "We too have had our portion of sickness; but are thankful that we have suffered much less in this autumn than the last notwithstanding the unusual inclemency of the season;" adding, in a postscript, "I am tired of myself, as a subject of either conversation or writing : but you will read all that concerns my claims on the public, and their present state, in two of the news papers of this day; which I take the liberty to mention, lest you should not take in either of them. I cannot tell which they are."