Dear Sir.

North Court. Isle of Wight. July 26. 1791.

I don’t believe you have more pleasure in reading letters, merely as such, than I have in writing them, and nothing from hence being likely either to amuse, or to interest you, I thought I might as well hold my peace.

Having expected every week for more than a month past to be call’d to London, I have omitted paying the amount of Moses Griffith's Bill to your Banker, but it shall not be much longer neglected, in the mean time, I take it for granted the delay is of small inconvenience to either of You. inclosed is an exact statement of my debt, copied from your own, and from his detatch'd papers, which I shall suppose to be right unless I hear from you to the Contrary.¹ I am endeavoring to procure a list of the various birds frequenting the needle Rocks, ^with which Moses's elegant pencil may decorate my Vectis. I am likely to take root here, not from any predilection of my own, but because the climate seems so congenial to the healths of my daughters,² who are grown quite fond of a place, where they have expended a pretty large sum of late, somewhat imprudently in my opinion; but they think the fall of man all a fable, and that they live in Eden still. Cowes is now become a perfect public place, and we begin to feel heavily the want of that retirement, which heretofore made Northcourt so desirable to us; and pour comble de Malheur,³the King is expected every day, to view the Fleet, which has for some time been anchor’d in a double line of battle, beautifull and magnificent to behold. I, for one, hardly think they will let him be so far from London just now, tho’ Sir Richard Worsley has offer'd his house, and is getting it ready. possibly he may come quite as privately as he can, to Portsmouth, with the 2 elder princesses,⁴ who have never seen a Ship of warr. – I don’t find [...] any of the Captains have the least Idea of sailing to the Baltic, or any where else. The expense is enormous, but I dare believe M^r. Pitt will give good reasons for his apparent extravagance. your last letter complain’d of your being unwell, but I hope this will find all of the House of Pennant in good health, and in perfect enjoyment of all their faculties. my deafness encreases upon me, otherwise, I am very well, and very much yours

Rich^d: Bull

P.S. simpleton, as I am, I never recollected till this moment, how easy it is, to pay discharge my debt to Moses, by ordering M^r. Hoare, my Banker to pay the same, to your banker M^r Goslin - I will do it directly, and you may reckon it discharg'd accordingly. Rainsford desires his best remembrances to You. –

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Editorial notes

1. The enclosure is not present with the manuscript letter.
2. Elizabeth and Catherine Bull.
3. 'to make things worse'.
4. Charlotte Augusta Matilda, princess royal (1766–1828), queen of Württemberg, consort of Friedrich I; and Princess Augusta Sophia (1768–1840). ODNB.