To: Sir William Wyndham. n.p. 30 January [n.s.] 1725. Text: MS, Petworth House Archives 19, fols 26–9.

By the last post I inclos’d ¹ to the Marquise the consultation of Chirac and Sydobre upon Lady Katherine’s case. her present state admits of no formal method of cure, which they would otherwise have prescrib’d, but they think that great attention must be given by her Physicians during the whole time of her being with child to prepare against any return of those fits in her lying in. afterwards they will give their opinions concerning a systeme of cure which they hope may prove effectual. there is a mineral water in this country, call’d l’eau de caransaque, ² which bears carriage extreamly well, and w^ch has had wonderful success in all epileptick cases. I beleive they will be of opinion that Lady Katherine should make use of it. in short, my dear Friend, if I can be of any use in contributing to preserve to you so valuable a blessing, I shall esteem it one of the greatest happynesses of a life not very full of them. I began to hope some time ago that the feavour had left me, and that y^e illness which I have felt so long in my stomach, and which is the principle of my whole indisposition, was going. but I was soon convinc’d in a very disagreable mannr ^manner of my errour, having been worse since that time than I had been before. att last I have try’d a remedy of reputation in this country which a Barber surgeon administers. it cur’d the Duke de Noirmoutier ³ in a case not unlike to mine, and his advice determin’d me. I am very much the better for it already. I am not without hopes that it will set me up entirely, att least it will enable me, I dare say, to go to the waters, from which perhaps I must expect y^e compleating of my cure. It is very true, my dear friend, that I do not desire health more earnestly than I desire to be deliver’d from suspence, and enabled some where or other to enjoy that quiet, which is the only object I propose to my self for the rest of my life.