“I have got some pleasant news for you which I am eager to communicate, and therefore begin my letter sooner, though I shall not send it sooner than usual. Admiral Gambier, in reply to my father’s application, writes as follows: ‘As it is usual to keep young officers’ (Charles was then only nineteen) ‘in small vessels, it being most proper on account of their inexperience, and it being also a situation where they are more in the way of learning their duty, your son has been continued in the _Scorpion_; but I have mentioned to the Board of Admiralty his wish to be in a frigate, and when a proper opportunity offers, and it is judged that he has taken his turn in a small ship, I hope he will be removed. With regard to your son now in the _London_, I am glad I can give you the assurance that his promotion is likely to take place very soon, as Lord Spencer has been so good as to say he would include him in an arrangement that he proposes making in a short time relative to some promotions in that quarter.’ “There! I may now finish my letter and go and hang myself, for I am sure I can neither write nor do anything which will not appear insipid to you after this. Now I really think he will soon be made, and only wish we could communicate our foreknowledge of the event to him whom it principally concerns. My father has written to Daysh to desire that he will inform us, if he can, when the commission is sent. Your chief wish is now ready to be accomplished, and could Lord Spencer give happiness to Martha at the same time, what a joyful heart he would make of yours!” It is quite clear from this, and many other of the letters of Jane to Cassandra, that both sisters were anxious to bring off a match between Frank and their great friend, Martha Lloyd, whose younger sister was the wife of James Austen. Martha Lloyd eventually became Frank’s second wife nearly thirty years after the date of this letter. Jane continues her letter by saying: “I have sent the same extract of the sweets of Gambier to Charles, who, poor fellow! though he sinks into nothing but an humble attendant on the hero of the piece, will, I hope, be contented with the prospect held out to him. By what the Admiral says, it appears as if he had been designedly kept in the _Scorpion_. But I will not torment myself with conjectures and suppositions. Facts shall satisfy me. Frank had not heard from any of us for ten weeks, when he wrote to me on November 12, in consequence of Lord St. Vincent being removed to Gibraltar. When his commission is sent, however, it will not be so long on its road as our letters, because all the Government despatches are forwarded by land to his lordship from Lisbon with great regularity. The lords of the Admiralty will have enough of our applications at present, for I hear from Charles that he has written to Lord Spencer himself to be removed. I am afraid his Serene Highness will be in a passion, and order some of our heads to be cut off.”