The correct answer is I spent an hour debating if I should tell you about Tom's illness.
Explanation:
These excerpts are extracted from personal letters. As we can see, in the third there is an internal struggle in the person who is writing.
The fight is such that he had to spend an hour debating with himself whether he should tell about Tom's illness.
Apparently this was an important decision, and this person's internal conflict was going on in his head, with his own thoughts, as to whether or not he should tell it.
Lowell is considered the principal founder of what is said to have been the world's first textile mill in which were performed all operations converting raw cotton into finished cloth.