Autograph letter signed : Aleppo, to Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, 1814 August 14.

Acknowledging receipt of dispatches from the Admiral, and discussing Smith's son-in-law's correspondence with Europe, which Barker was evidently helping to facilitate; sending news of Smith's cousin, Lady Hester Stanhope, who has moved to a convent called "Mushmuche" which is located about six hours from Saida, "up the mountains of the Druses", to recover from an illness; giving an account of her first bout of the illness, which occurred when she was staying in Latakia the previous autumn, and her fortitude in facing it: "Her disorder was an epidemical putrid fever, in which the paroxysms were so violent each night as to render her continually delirious; but in the day, altho' the fever never left her she was generally quite composed, and gave me her orders for her funeral, and the disposition of her effects with a calmness and resignation, that was truly edifying"; listing the medical treatments given to her (leeches, asses' milk, hot baths); sending news of "your friend the Emir Beshir" (probably Bashir Shibab II, ruler of Lebanon), who "continues to enjoy health and prosperity, and, ever since the Death of Jazzar [probably the Ottoman governor Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar], perfect tranquility in his Government"; commenting, however, that the real power in the country is "Sheik Beshir Jiamblatt" (probably Bashir Jumblatt), and that the Sheik and the Emir compete over the magnificence of their palaces; referring to a member of the Emir's household, one "Sheik Saloom", who was with the Emir when the former took refuge on board the HMS Tigre (which Smith captained); describing the Emir's confessor, Padre Luigi Gandolfi; offering to convey letters between the Emir and Admiral Smith; referring to steps Barker has taken to authenticate the "atrocious act of the Jaffa massacre" (perhaps, the siege of Jaffa in 1799); claiming that the Chevalier of Malta, Mr. Lascaris, has been telling "every Englishman he has fallen in with" that Barker suppressed Lascaris's book about the conquest and colonization of Syria, translated it, and presented it as his own work to the British government; describing Lascaris as "neither a spy nor a distressed person, but a species of madman, whose head is full of wild projects"; describing two disturbing incidents that occurred when Lascaris was traveling with Lady Hester Stanhope in the desert.