Philip Doddridge, Cannon Street, London, to Mercy Doddridge, Northampton, Tuesday morning, 28 July 1747.

Cannon Street July 28. 1747.

Tuesd. Morning

My dearest Creature

            I bless God I am perfectly well – yesterday was a charming Day Mr Lyttelton recd me to his Arms & Heart & opened it wh a friendly confidence that surprized me  He told me ye most moving Story I ever heard wh kept me awake almost all Night. Mr Raymond has not yet been heard of & I am much afraid he has destroyed himself & thereby all ye remaining Hopes of her Family & all possibility of doing Justice to his Creditors. I wish I may be able to reach Home ye week after next but much business here & round about. I long to see you beyond Expression. The Examiners will be wh us next Saturday come three weeks. I would fain be at Home one week before if it be possible. I am quite sorry you cannot come to St Albans. I pray God to preserve you for Mr Lyttletons Story wh has cost me many a Tear fills my Heart wh a Tenderness for your Safety which is ready to grow up to Anxiety. God only knows how near you lie to my Heart & how much worse than Death I should think it to lose you I am well my earthly all       

                         I am

                                     much more yours than words can express

                                                                                P D

I think Mr Lyttleton is ye most affectionate Man I ever saw & seems to have as generous & open a Soul as Col. Gardiner himself we talked much of you as you may suppose

Address: To Mrs Doddridge | in Northampton

Postmark: none

Note on address page: Dr Ds

Text: Ferdinand J. Dreer Autograph Collection, English Clergyman, Vol. 1, Box 263, Folder 52, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Letter does not appear in Geoffrey F. Nuttall, Calendar of the Correspondence of Philip Doddridge (1979) but it does appear in his Philip Doddridge: Additional Letters (2001). Doddridge had been traveling for some more than a week prior to this letter, first at St. Albans and then in London, staying with Thomas Jackson in Cannon Street, then to Walthamstow and Epping. He wrote to Mercy from Cannon Street on 21 July and from Walthamstow on 23 July, where he attended the setting apart for the ministry of his brother-in-law, John Nettleton. He was back at the Jacksons on 25 July and wrote again to Mercy, who responded on 27-28 July from Northampton and on 31 July, which would have been her response to the letter below. Doddridge's plan for leaving in the next week was delayed; he would remain in London through 8 August preaching the Sunday before for Isaac Watts at Newington. See Nuttall's Calendar, letters 1252-3, 1255-6, 1259-60, 1263.