Thomas Langdon, Leeds, to John Sutcliff, Olney, 17 June 1790.

Leeds. June 17. 1790.

My dear Friend,

  A M.r Smithers is going to send a parcel to M.r Palmer of your town, I cannot help embracing the opportunity of sending you a line, just to tell you that I am still alive. 

  I was very much grieved yesterday on hearing that you had been in Yorkshire without giving me the pleasure of seeing you at Leeds. Had you known how happy I should have been to have enjoy’d an interview with you, I am perswaded you would either have come this way, or given me an opportunity of meeting you at some other place. However, I will hope that when you come into this country again, you will not forget your old friend Langdon.

  A M.r Temple has established a connexion at Olney, I hope soon to have an opportunity of sending you a Letter: at present I have only time to tell you, that (thro mercy) I go on pretty comfortably here; that I intend to spend the next Month in Ireland, and to preach under the direction of the Evangelical Society, lately established there; that I shall be happy to receive a line from M.r Sutcliffe; and that I am 

                                                      Your affectionate Friend and Brother

                                                                        Tho.s Langdon

P.S.  Mess.rs Smithers and Temple are persons for whom I have a very great regard, and I was happy when I found M.r Palmer had given them an Order. They are I believe very honest worthy Gentlemen. M.r S. is one of our Congregation.

Pray forgive my hasty scrawl

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 49-50 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 370, fol. 75, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. On the back page Sutcliff has written, “Ans.d March 31. 1791.” Thomas Langdon (1755-1824) was the Baptist minister at Leeds, 1781-1824.