My Dear Brother

It gave me great concern to find that you were uneasy at your son's going abroad. I will beg leave to state my part in the affair and I hope you will not condemn me for what I have endeavourd to do for his benefit. When he came here first I learned that his circumstances were very indifferent, and that something was to be done to retrieve them. The stage was an abominable resource which neither became a man of honour, nor a man of sense. I therefore dissuaded him from that design and turned him to physic in which he had before made a very great progress, and since that he has for this last twelve month applied himself to surgery, so that I am thoroughly convinced that there is not a better surgeon in the kingdom of Ireland than he. I was obliged to go down to Bath with a friend that was dying when my nephew sent me down your letter to him in which you inform him that he can no longer have any expectations from you and that therefore he must think of providing for himself. With this letter he sent me one of his own where he asserted his fixed intentions of going surgeon's mate to India. Upon reading the two letters I own I thought something was to be done.