A LETTER FROM MR. HOBBS TO MY MR.[2]

HONORABLE SIR,

Though I may goe whither and when I will for anie necessity you have of my service, yet there is a necessity of good manners that obliges me as yo^r servant to lett you knowe att all times where to find me. Wee goe out of Paris 3 weekes hence, or sooner, towards Venice, but by what way I knowe not, because the ordinary high way through the territory of Milan is encumbered with the warre betweene the French and the Spaniards. Howsoever, wee have to be there in October next. If you require anie service that I can doe there, it may please you to convey your command by Devonshire house. But if you command me nothing, I have forbidden my letters to look for answer: their busines being only to informe and to lett you knowe that the image of your noblenes decayes not in my memory, but abides fresh to keepe me eternally

Your THO. HOBBS.

Footnote 2:

This letter is to be found in the British Museum, amongst the Lansdowne MSS. 238, entitled “a collection of letters to and from persons of eminence in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, made by some person in the service of Sir Gervas Clifton”. It is without date: but the allusion to the war between France and Spain, and the passage in the VITA THO. HOBBES, “Anno sequente qui erat Christi 1629, rogatus a nobilissimo viro domino Gervasio Clifton”, &c. (p. xiv), show that it must have been written in either 1629 or 1630.