Laments his separation from his mother, whom he has not seen for five years, and begs Baskervile to ingratiate him into her favour, which will be the best news he ever heard and the greatest obligation; military news of the armies of Mansfeld, Bethlehem Gabor, etc.

The writer of this letter speaks of himself as being twenty years old.

The initial of a Christian name in the writer’s signature is a flourish resembling the letter A; Burke’s Extinct Baronetcies only mentions John (afterwards viscount) as son of Sir James Scudamore, and gives the name of his mother as Anne instead of Mary. Except in the final 'e' of the signature the writing does not at all resemble that of visc. Scudamore in fol. 28.