Dec^r 4^th 1778

Dear Sir

I extremely rejoice at the proof you sent of D^r Ramsay’s recovery; & hope soon to have it confirmed from himself. Celts vary infinitely in their forms. You will see all kinds in my friend Lorts dissertation on them in the next vol. of Archaelogia.

Pray who is F.D. who so kindly vindicated me & so ably in the London Chronicle of last month.¹ I think myself highly obliged to him for I never trouble myself with answers.

S. Britain swarms with infamous amours. I hear of five now all of rank which will probably come before the house.

A very fine print of myself is just finished at a vast expence.² I am in doubt what to do with it. If published it will be for the benefit of Moses Griffith. I beg to know if you think it would take in y^r country. If so M^r Elliot may have a certain number at ½ year credit & usual allowance. Pray consult how many may be sent. Price either 7^s — 6^d or 10^s.^d6 I cannot at this moment fix. Pray is there a waggon to Edinburgh & where does it inn at London? A speedy answer will much oblige

D^r Sir
Y^r most obed^t Serv^t

Th. Pennant.

I am amazed that M^r Lautie has not got his Welsh Tour.

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Editorial notes

1. See letter 'To the Printer of the London Chronicle' in the London Chronicle for November 7, 1778, signed 'F.D.'. The letter defends Pennant's account of an alleged massacre of the Colquhoun clan by the MacGregors in A Tour in Scotland 1769 (1774), pp.243-44, against accusations of partiality that had appeared in a letter to The London Chronicle on January 25 1776. See Pennant's letters to Paton on February 3 and 11 1776, and Paton's reply of March 21. Pennant's letter to Paton on December 27 1778 identifies 'F.D.' as Francis Douglas of Abbots-Inch, near Paisley.
2. Likely the 1779 (1778) engraving by John Keyse Sherwin after Thomas Gainsborough's oil on canvas portrait of Pennant taken in 1776.