Autograph letter signed : Bath, to James Burney, 1816 May 10.

Writing that they are looking forward to receiving a copy of the fourth volume of James's A Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea; mentioning that he could send it by stage coach: "We had poor Sarah's Shipwreck [Sarah Harriet Burney's novel The Shipwreck], free from all storm & danger, by the common stage: we beg you, therefore, to have the kindness to transmit your Bucaneers by the same convoy"; saying that she has copies of the Repertory of English Literature, a Parisian periodical, which reviewed the earlier volumes of James's Chronological History in 1807, and that she will send him the relevant issues; adding that she noticed the initials "F.R.S." after James's name in an advertisement and asking whether he has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; describing the state of her health and that of her husband: "My better half is still lame, & his leg often swells & is uneasy. He has been, however, very irregular in his trial of the Bath pumps, & therefore cannot yet judge their efficacy"; asking whether James had known the Spanish admiral Josef Espinosa y Tello, who had recently died; telling him also about Henry Barry, a retired soldier living in Bath, who claims to have known James when he was in command of the ship the Bristol in Bombay; describing the improvements in her sister Esther's health; telling him that she, her husband, Esther and Esther's daughters Maria, Sophia and Amelia went to see the actress Marie Thérèse Kemble appear in two roles at the Theatre-Royal the previous evening; mentioning problems with her son Alex's scholarship at Cambridge; writing that she is glad to hear that Sarah Harriet Burney is in good spirits and that her "complaint is giving way": "It would be superfluous to say how I feel for her -- poor, poor Soul! Hemlock has done wonders -- with me it was never tried, my attack being decidedly local. With me, therefore, extirpation was not only the certain, but only cure" (possibly a reference to her mastectomy in 1811); referring to her brother Charles's treatment by the doctor Matthew Baillie for "strange pains in the back of his head"; begging James to smoke less, since it "exhausts dreadfully, & keeps you so thin."