Dear Sir

I am most heartily fretted at y^r misapprehension of my request. I only did desire that neither you nor any other friend would put anything in the paper about me either as defence. or panegyric. I want neither. Praise only excites envy & creates abuse. I never had so wild a thought as to wish you to strive to prevent anything being inserted against me. leave my abusers alone & they will be soon weary with throwing imbelle tetum.

I am glad you take up M^r Low so strenuously. most of the plates will be antiquarian & done at about 2 Guineas each. The Birdcatching cost 5.5.^g The Bird with the island 2.2.g I suppose the cost of plates may amount to no more than 60^L. & his charges in the voyage 20^L. Which I give him, but still for his benefit must be charged to account.

Mr Banks had promised copies of his drawings¹ for M^r Low’s use. but I fear I cannot get them till I go to town. But M^r Lows own is most uncommonly curious & as you justly observe his work & M^r Cordiners added to my own will be a most complete set of N. British Antiquities. I wish y^r friend M^r Elliot may be in a situation to serve himself & the authors by bidding properly. for my part as M^r Low is backward as to engravings, he should defer his publication till next year. especially if Mr Banks drawings are to be used. Would M^r Low approve subscription it would help the plates. I wish M^r Elliot would in sight of the MS. estimate the expence of printing 1000 copes if he thinks so many will sell. qto, size of my tours.

I am D^r Sir yr^s most faithfully

T. Pennant

Downing May. 11^th 1779.

I hope by midsummer to send M^r Elliot proofs of M^r Cordiner’s plates. must it be thro’ M^r Cadel?

I wish M^r Low would send me the upright of the Burgh or Burrow Firth.

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Editorial notes

1. Returning from his voyage to Iceland in 1772, Joseph Banks and his party had called at Orkney, where George Low acted as their guide. Banks' expedition artists, John Cleveley and the brothers James and John Frederick Miller made several drawings of Orkney scenery and antiquities, probably those works which Pennant refers to here as Banks'. See John Bonehill, "New scenes drawn by the pencil of Truth': Joseph Banks’ northern voyage, Journal of Historical Geography, 43 (2014), 9-27.