[From Letters of Bishop Hildesley]

Letter XIX

Bishopscourt, Tuesday, 2 o'clock. Apr. 26, 1763,

Various friendly visits as well as business have from time to time put me by acknowledging your several favours; and now do it imperfectly, as my head is not quite rid of the whirl between double forms "Manks Bishop and English Bishop." Tho' I am in no doubt which 'tis fittest should take place the hasty produce of my fluctuating thoughts or that. of a well weighed composition of a junto of learned British prelates. However that you may be convinced of the disparity, I have sent you what may just serve to exerscise your critical genius, on your Bishop's Court Brother, that, I was just about to dispatch, to provide against disappointment. For indeed we are driven to a narrow space, for circulating the orders to be published next Sunday throughout the Isle of Man, for which tis high time something was done. I send Jack to Castletown tomorrow for the order of the Governor and Council, which is a sine qua non. I had some thoughts of being, at Castletown on Thursday; which I have now given up, and I fear his honour is not aware of the time requisite for circulation.

I have not yet looked on the English forms: lest. if I did, I should be ashamed to send you mine; but which (n.b.) is only for your private curiosity.

My address to the clergy will attend the Governor's order.

In the meantime you will dispatch the forms as directed, and only add with your own pen that the order with my address will follow between this and Sunday. I received my cargoes, Dutch and English. The former I sorely regretted my forgetting to request you when you went from hence to dispatch the Dutch freights by custom horses (29a) so soon as you got home; however, "better late than never."

I have other things to say, which time and circumstances will not now permit.

Poor Mrs Moore, a cough at last! May she soon surmount it. Sister Hesther is still upon the same strain. Thank God I hold much the same—though at best,

Yr. Weak Bror , M.S. M.

I have a most friendly and affecte letter from his Grace of Canterbury (30), such as I sometimes receive from a Rector of Bride, which you shall see when we next meet.

(29a)—These were the horses of the custom house "riders," who travelled all over the Island.

(30)—"His Grace of Canterbury": T. Lecker.