A recently discovered Letter written by Colonel Isaac Royall in 1779.
THE Society is indebted to Mr. George Y. Wellington, President of the Arlington Historical Society, for the accompanying copy of a letter by Col. Isaac Royall of Medford, written from Kensington, England, in 1779, to his old friend and tutor, Rev. Samuel Cooke, minister of the Second Parish in Cambridge, located at Monotomy (now Arlington, Mass.) The original of this letter was given by Miss Anna Bradshaw, granddaughter of Samuel Cooke, to Mrs. M. W. Hodgdon, and is now in the possession of her daughter, Miss Ellen W. Hodgdon.
The original letter is beautifully written in a very fine and small hand, covering three pages of letter-sheet 9 1/2 × 15 inches; it is well preserved in a transparent silk cover and is kept in a safe in the State House, Boston.
Kensington May 29: 1779
Dear Sir
Our long acquaintance and the Friendship you profess'd and shew for me and my Children and Family induc'd me to write you soon after my arrival in England as I thought it would give you pleasure to hear from me I therein gave you a particular account of our voyage which Letter I hope you receiv'd at the same time I wrote my Worthy Friend Mr Turill but as I have not had the pleasure of hearing from either of you in return makes me fearful they did not get to Hand and meeting the other Day with Capt. Malachi Salter who is Uncle to Mr Willis Hall's Wife and who told me he was bound to Halifax and from thence home to Boston and if I had any Letters to send to my Friends would be glad to oblige me and would take particular care of them so that I thought this would be a good opportunity of sending you a Letter by him who will be able to tell you my state
note. Isaac Royall was born in Antigua in 1719, and died in England of small-pox in 1781.
See Vol.
III, p. 133. 