Lacock,
Chippenahm.
United University Club
Suffolk St. WC
June 27th 1870
My dear Mr Talbot,
You last letter surprised me much; of course I should not have asked your consent to a simple exchange of duty with a brother clergyman, as your consent would not be necessary: I only told you of my idea, that you might become acquainted with the clergyman I should eventually propose to you to exchange with. However this is all knocked on the head both by your letter, but chiefly from my mother’s unwillingness to our going out to Naples.
From your letter I perceive that nobody will suit you except Mr Roach: any exchange for him I fear is hopeless: so that the only way I see out of the difficulty is my resigning the living at once, but this I cannot afford to do unless you would be willing to make good to me all that I have expended on the new Vicarage & ground beyond the money borrowed from Queen Anne’s bounty and the price of the old vicarage: if this should meet your approval I shall be most ready at once to resign –
If you should not write to me tomorrow please to direct to me care of Capt <Fltyd?> Nicholl RN Lyme Regis Dorset as we are all going down there for a few weeks –
Yours truly
Edward P. Nicholl