Autograph letter signed : Brussels, to James Burney, 1815 July 10-12.

Thanking James for his hospitality and kindness to her son Alex; writing that she has also heard from Alex about James's defense of her novel The Wanderer (James had broken off his acquaintanceship with William Hazlitt in response to the latter's critical review of the book); explaining her approach to criticism and her expectations for The Wanderer: "sincerely as I am sensible to your animation in favour of this my youngest Child, I am myself gifted, happily, with a most impenetrable apathy upon the subject of its Criticisers. I have never read, nor chanced to meet with one word upon the subject. I never expected it would have any immediate favour in the World; & I have not yet shut out from my spying Glass a distant prospect that it may share, in a few years, the partiality shewn to its Elder Sisters"; describing all that the book had against it, including the price she was paid for it and the expectation that it would be autobiographical; mentioning that, despite this, the first volume was received "by the reigning Critical Judges, with almost unbounded applause"; listing those to whom advance copies of the first volume were sent, among them Lord Byron, Madame de Staël, William Godwin, James Mackintosh and Samuel Romilly; describing the mixed reaction to the second volume; writing that she will leave the assessment of The Wanderer up to future readers: "All these concomitant matters, however, will die -- & the Book will either Revive, or Expire from the cool & unbiased Judgement of those who may read it without thinking of its Critics; or even of its Author, hereafter"; telling him that the Princess d'Hénin has just called to tell her that "an Express arrived here last night from Paris, with an account that all was well & quiet in that extraordinary Capital: that Buonaparte was gone off, nobody could, or would, say certainly whither; that he had himself desired an application might be made to Lord Wellington for his passport, & sauvegarde, but that Lord Wellington answered 'That to the Man against whom he came to make War, he would certainly grant neither; too many brave men having already been sacrificed in his Defeat...'"; describing and listing the members of Louis XVIII's new government, among them Talleyrand (Prime Minister), the Marquis Gouvion Saint-Cyr (Minister of War), Arnail François Jaucourt (Naval Minister), Joseph-Dominique Louis (Finance Minister) and Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (Minister of the Interior); joking that they do not want the duc de Blacas back (Blacas had been dismissed from service as the Grand Master of the Wardrobe and was traveling to England to gather his family); mentioning that this letter will be brought to England by William Burney (despite the last name, not a relative), a Captain in the 44th Regiment of Foot, who was wounded in the second day of fighting and is on leave; adding that she hopes James has encouraged Alex to study ("I am a little uneasy lest he adopts a life of mere pleasure & amusement"); writing of how she longs to have a home again ("This Revolutionary manner of existence is fatiguing, affrighting, & consuming") and of her concern about her "Goods & Chattels" in Paris, "& my various MSS. in particular. No letters yet pass."