Letter from Edward Pease, Darlington, to Henry Pease, P.O., St. Leonards on the Sea, near Hastings, East Sussex, expressing his sympathy with Henry on the continued decline in the health of Anna; discussing the fact that his children are away from County Durham; ‘I ask thee to think how I seemed benarrowed in my affectionate interests in looking at Eastmount – So end & thy habitation – all vacant – and was not my Beloved Eliza and her children here to comfort me I should seem bereft indeed – how long they may remain with me seems uncertain’; describing the partial recovery of Mary Gibson from a seizure; discussing John and Sophia’s stay at Seaton, and John’s health: ‘I have been quite concerned to see him more than normally bilious and thin’; describing John’s intention of visiting ‘Berks & Oxon & Bedford & Northampton QMs & it might be to hold some publick meetings and appoint meetings going and returning, his concern met with great concurrence and unity, indeed it appeared to me that he gave proof in our first meeting yesterday that he was endued with a power which in the brightness of its openings and influence was not of man’; describing the proceedings at the Meeting: ‘our meeting for worship was striking & that for discipline comfortable & harmonious; lamenting the lack of Edward during these contentious discussions ‘on this occasion I found the want of my very precious Edwards sometimes very timely words & when I look at his vacant seat in meeting and the want there is of his pure spirit – when I feel that he is neither in this room nor that, nor nowhere, my heart in great tenderness feels its lonesomeness with tears of tenderness – yet blessed is the peace into which his spirit is entered – may we all reassemble in mansions prepared by our Lord’; discussing common acquaintances: ‘Isaac Sharp is returned with his Hanh & it is said there is some improvement I fear tis but little – I conclude some one would tell thee of poor Thos Atkinsons deplorable fall & how his dear mother is overwhelmed with grief & very distressingly so the nice amiable girl Rach Spence to whom he was about to be united – it would appear that in disease and crime it is an affecting counterpart of his poor Bro Benjamin’; referring to a proposed visit by Cos. J. Braithwaite and Cos. Anna with Caroline and Bevans; referring to the reprobate John Fell: ‘Bro had been at Marske Yorkshire and spent a day with poor Jno who is most miserable & unhappy and has since wrote Bro he did not know what a day of peace or when he had it except the day he spent with him desires his father will go & pass 2 or 3 days with him, the letter seems wrote in a better disposition than he has of long evinced & something more like apology in thinking he perhaps deserves the misery he feels’; describing a letter from ‘Josiah F. then relaxing in the beautiful salubrious vallies of the Appenines Italy which he compares to the finest English lake scenery on a grander scale’; recounting E.F.’s visits to prisons in Marseilles France and Toulon, France which ‘had been satisfactory & ever afforded EF opportunity of bearing testimony to Gospel truths as held by us, but Roman Catholic sway was a sad bar, yet the valuable working of the bible society in getting new testaments into the schools etc. etc. in these remote vallies was evident – he expects to be at home 20th of next mo – at Toulouse France they had made acquaintance with the three valuable Brothers the Courtois, Bankers, those who were indefatigable in spreading the scriptures & works of piety’; informing Henry that a remittance will be sent to York and that a cheque for his ‘furniture as per Biltons valuation’ has been paid into his account, 17 July 1839 – From: Quaker families of Darlington,Pease family, Henry Pease (1807 – 1881), Correspondence