Thanks for turkey and biscuits, which her ill-health prevented her from acknowledging sooner. Offers Smith a stuffed bird of paradise for his collection; she received it with a living parakeet from Bombay and its plumage is as though it died yesterday. Ashamed to put Smith's household to the expense and trouble of satisfying her demand for biscuits and ideally would like a box quarterly but her finances constrained "since Mr [William] Pitt [the Younger (1759-1806), prime minister] has been pleas'd to take £500 a year" from her income.

Comments that Smith's 'Agapanthus' which bore the winter and flourished in a border "must have been very pleasant", and wishes Smith could persuade Grieg, her gardener, to make similar experiments at Hillingdon. 'Amarylis radiata' in flower in her room which she thinks worthy of being drawn; [James] Sowerby does not recall her sending him a flower and leaf of it two years ago.

Curious to know whether Smith's sister is married to his young companion he brought to visit last year. Sending the bird in a box soon.