Dear Sir

Downing July 12^th - 88

In respect to the wish to have England & Schetland¹ back it is owing to what I said a desire to make your copy as perfect as my own: for after the parcel was sent I found numbers of drawing relative to the Scottish isles,² which I had not thought of. if you send them at michaelmas I ca[...]n bring them up with all the remainder. the drawings were for you.³

I hope to meet you in town in December; very early in the month. not to find a New Binder for Wingrave is grown so negligent as almost to ruin for me my set of Cook. so rapidly have the arts travelled, that at Chester I find one, and at Denbigh. another whom I shall trust in preferrence to the workman of Fleetstreet.

Was it not for the sort of Education I mean to give my little girl, I should be indifferent to London: saving the sight of a few friends, among whom I need not name one. The above is a home Education: for I detest the unnatural one of schools. when a widower I was forced to send my eldest to one. her mind was returned to me untainted: but her most elegant figure was shamefully injured.

I thank you for y^r politics. Be so good as to continue them; for I hear nothing but the mthro' the medium of news papers: & what I see now respecting our domestic Jars frighten an old man, who dreads the return of faction & sedition.

The cruel shock of our Cotton trade affects my little town of Holy well. The manufacturers there do keep on their legs: but have discharged multitudes of their people. the works there were superior to those of any other part of the Kingdom; & the most elegant. a foolish rapacity has brought about all this calamity.

I fancy we shall soon hear of the northern semiramis following her Husband.

Inclosed are some Prints from olaffens Hist: of Iceland. you will not get such easily. more may follow. I need not advise you to get the creases out. Among them are some of the newest fashions for the Benefit of miss Bulls.⁴ I hope to see them next winter come towering into an assembly rom [sic] toutes a L’Islandoises.⁵

Adieu
y^rs most truely

Tho. Pennant

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Editorial notes

1. Sections of 'Introduction of the Arctic World'.
2. For a 'List of Drawings made by Moses Griffith in my Tour to Scotland 1772. and of others presented to me on my journey', see one of three unnumbered notebooks in NLW 2530A. The second list within this notebook, headed 'Book No. II' includes numerous references to Scottish isles, including Bute, Arran, Y columbkil, Mull and Skie [sic].
3. Further on these drawings see 1077 and 1078.
4. Elizabeth and Catherine Bull.
5. 'like real Icelandic girls'.