Dear Sir

Downing Oct^r 19^th 1797

I arrived here from oxford on Tuesday after settling my good Tom at Christchurch. I trust & believe I brought him up proof against the corruptions of the place, the effect of the times. want of health & want of spirits occasioned my visit to Bath. I do not know to whom I can pour out the causes so properly as to a friend who will bear with them & who besides is not ignarus mali.¹ my loss in 1794 began the carreer of visitations. The wound was scarcely healed before the death of Sir Roger Mostyn & all the consequential evils, opened it afresh. The degraded conduct of his heir, his ingratuitude to his guardians & [sic] are fresh aggravations of the trouble, & the successful divisions created by the villanous church man the dean have produced dissensions truely tremendous. Death hath made frequent also among my friends but the loss of two of my humble ones affected me most poignantly. one a faithful servant who lived above 50 years in the family of my first wife and my own. a woman zealous in every interest of her master or mistress. She fell in my sight of an apoplexy.. The second loss I sustained was of a singular character an humble companion who for above 40 years prevaded my first dish at Dinner a sort of Sancho with good abilities, most singular humor, & great innocence.² I truly may say that Better I had lost a better man

I now stop; & divert my lamentations to something more pleasing. Last week my Eldest son reviewed his company: & made a most masterly allocation, more romanor^um³ animating, nervous & eloquent: the grace of his action the propriety of his diction & his fine person had full weight on his audience.⁴ ––––– but too much of this.

may this find miss Bull & you well, & inspirited by Duncan's victory.⁵ It was as critical as great. I think I have had letters from you dated from this place [...]⁶ amusement draw you here this season; a pleasing expectation to

Dear Sir
Y^r obliged & affect friend

Tho. Pennant

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Editorial notes

1. 'unacquainted with misfortune'.
2. For another reference to this servant, see 1202.
3. 'in the manner of the Romans'.
4. For a contemporary newspaper account of David Pennant's review of the Loyal Holywell Volunteers (which R. Paul Evans suggests was written by Thomas Pennant for the Chester Courant), see Evans, 'The Flintshire Loyalist Association and the Loyal Holywell Volunteers', 65.
5. This refers to the Battle of Camperdown, between a fleet of the Royal Navy under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Dutch navy fleet under Admiral de Winter. It was fought on 11 October 1797. ODNB s.n. Adam Duncan, Viscount Duncan.
6. There is an empty gap in the manuscript, here.