Autograph letter signed : Broke Hall [Nacton,Suffolk], to Charles Austen, 1824 December 11.

Concerning his son's recent promotion ("I am glad to say he passed with credit. Lord Melville very handsomely gave him his appointment directly & as a pretty compliment commissioned him nominally for the Shannon"); news of his family and household; his poor health and that of his wife, which keeps them at home, with an account of the partial paralysis he suffered following a fall from a horse; explaining that he is unfit to accept any invitations to visit ("You are a very good fellow to offer your company ... but I fear unless some effect of nature relieve my brain & make me a man again, I shall never be fit to leave my moorings again ... I cannot stand a breeze without [shud]dering with cold - & the last thought or anxiety ... splits my head so that I am obliged to live as quiet & demure as a Quaker! - which is not a good training for a commodore."); sending his regards to the recipient's brother (i.e. Francis Austen).