November 13, 1777
...Ma tres chere niece! cousine! fille! mere, soeur et epouse!

 Bless my soul, a thousand curses, Croatians, damnations, devils, witches, sorcerers, hell's battalions to all eternity, by all the elements, air, water, earth and fire, Europe, Asia, Africa and America, Jesuits, Augustinians, Benedictines, Capuchins, Minorites, Franciscans, Dominicans,Carthusians and Brothers of the Holy Cross, Canons regular and irregular, all  slackers, knaves, cowards, slugards and toadies higgledy-piggledy, asses, buffaloes, oxen, fools, nit-wits and dunces! What sort of behavior is that, my dears- four smart soldiesrs and three bandoliers?....Such a parcel to get, but no portrait as yet! I was all eagerness- in fact, I was quite sure-for you yourself had written the other day that I was to have it soon, very soon. Perhaps you doubt that I shall keep my word? Surely you do not doubt me? Well, anyhow, I implore you to send me yours-the sooner the better. And I trust that you will have it done, as I urged you, in French costume.

...Now I must close, however that may be, for I am not yet dressed and we are lunching this very moment, so that after we may shit again, however that may be. Do go on loving me, as I love you, then we shall never cease loving one another, though the lion hovers round the walls, though doubt's hard victory has not been weighed and the tyrant's frenzy has crept to decay; yet Codrus, the wise philosopher, often eats soot instead of porridge, and the Romans, the props of my arse, have always been and ever will be- half castes.....