Jane tells her sister Cassandra that the boys at Godmersham are occupied with making nets, comparing their concentration to their uncle Frank's. The brief quotation illustrates the family's shared practical skills. Read it in the longer letter to Cassandra. The naval biography quoted only this sentence in its preface.

Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen

OCT 11, 1813

“amuse themselves very comfortably in the evening by netting; they are each about a rabbit-net, and sit as deedily to it, side by side, as any two Uncle Franks could do.”

This passage occurs in the letter of 11–12 October 1813, selected as the longer letter to Cassandra. The Morgan catalogue independently identifies the manuscript's recipient and dates.

Extract from Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers (1906), p. viii.