Autograph letter signed : West Humble, to James Burney, 1802 March 26-28.

Telling James that the military commission her husband Alexandre d'Arblay had received has been annulled and he will not be going to St. Domingo after all (he had accepted the commission from Napoleon Bonaparte with the caveat that he would never fight against England, and Bonaparte would not agree to this condition); explaining that Bonaparte had not made the decision "in wrath -- he has done justice to the feelings & motives of M. d'A. but declared he must be served unconditionally"; writing that the result of this is that she "is as happy as it is possible to be while M. d'Arblay is otherwise! But he is painfully oppressed by this whole business, & mortified by the result, & afflicted at the useless expences which diminish our poor Income, by the very acts which he thought would augment it"; adding that Monsieur d'Arblay would like her to come join him in France with their son Alex, along with her niece Maria (daughter of Fanny's sister Esther) and her husband Antoine Bourdois; asking if he knows if there is "any conveyance [...] as before the War, for carrying passengers from London to Paris, at a fixed expence"; writing of her eagerness to rejoin her husband and how busy she is with arranging to rent their house; adding that they intend to spend a year in France, most of it with Monsieur d'Arblay's uncle in Joigny; mentioning that she has re-opened the letter, since it missed Friday's post; writing that she has received a letter from her husband telling her that he has asked a friend of his, a "M. de Lally" (the Marquis de Lally-Tollendal) to travel with Fanny and Alex to Paris, along with another young charge, Adrienne-Adélaïde-Anne de Chavagnac, who has been staying with the Lockes; promising to write as soon as she arrives in Chelsea, sending her love to Sarah Harriet Burney; asking whether he has had a chance to inquire about her letters to Kitty Cooke (Papilian Catherine Cooke), as "I should be truly glad to recover them."