New York June 20. 1785
My dear Nephew,
If you should not have shipped my Chair for this place before you receive this letter I beg you not to remove it from Philadelphia until you hear further from me. My former illness has returned upon me with such increased violence, that unless a change soon takes place I must either quit this City & business for change of air and quiet, or else certainly deposit my remains here.1
My love to all with you & to yourself sincerely.
Richard Henry Lee
Receiver's copy, Shippen Family Papers, Library of Congress.
1 Two days later, however, Lee was able to report that "When I wrote you last Monday, I had been under so severe an affliction by the Gouty matter attacking my Bowels for some days, that I was quickly reduced very low - So that if a change had not taken place, the consequences would certainly have been very bad - I am happy however now to inform you that a change has taken place so much for the better as to render it not necessary for you to postpone the sending of my Chair here to me by water. Give my love to yr worthy father & tell him that it was forgetfulness altogether that occasioned me to omit returning by Mr. [Joseph] Harrison the Money that he was so kind as to advance to the Servant, but it shall be done by the next opportunity." Shippen Family Papers, DLC. Lee, Letters (Ballagh), 2:374 - 75.