I thank you for your letter, & return the receipt, – reminding you however that our engagement was <is> for guineas, – as the letter containing your offer shows.

– You have dealt fairly & uprightly with me, – as I was confident you would do, & as I have deserved to be treated.

I can readily believe that if this history had been brought out close upon the termination of the war, the immediate sale might have been greater than it has been now. But I am perfectly sure, that in the end, the delay which has intervened will prove not less conducive to your interest, than it was due to the subject, & my own reputation. For if the execution of the work be in any degree worthy of the subject, the story is so important in itself, so varied in its details, & so honourable to us as a nation, that sooner or later the book will find its way into every Englishmans <Gentlemans> library: & this it could not do if it had been composed hastily, upon insufficient materials. – On the other hand I am plainly a loser by the delay. Had we been to treat concerning the work when I was last in town,

you would have offered me just double what you are now paying. Known to you as I am, it is needless for me to say, that tho I live almost wholly by my writings (& that too, hitherto, from hand to mouth) this thought has never in the slightest degree abated the interest which I take in pursuing the history, nor the desire which I feel of rendering it as compleat as the most conscientious diligence can make it. That miscreant Lord Byron has slandered me as being a mercenary writer;

– how falsely I might appeal to you. But my life will one day give the lie to all such slanderers.

M^r Rees appears to have acted with a bad judgement, as well as an unfortunate memory. That house,

I suspect, is a little out of humour at my connection with you. Yet you & Turner both know, that the reason why we came to no conclusion concerning the Biography,

was because they could not be brought to act with you in it.

The second volume would have in the press long ago, if the booksellers whom you have employed had procured those works of Olivera’s.

Had my poor friend in Spain been living, I would have had them <over> in the despatches Spanish despatches. You cannot be more desirous that the remaining volumes should be brought out with as little delay as possible, than I am. – My absence from home this spring will occasion two months intermission of employment; – but I can promise both volumes in eighteen months from this time.