Dear Sir

Downing Octb^r 25^th 1790

Your acceptable favor of Sept^r 28^th1 arrived safe. & like all y^r others was most acceptable. When the wicked map maker will give us the map of Hampshire I shall proceed on my Tour, & complete I hope, my design of amusing you with the account of y^r delicious isle. while you are on the spot Be pleased To make an enquiry of y^r admirals (as the fittest men) whether there are any small & faithful prints of ships from the first rate to the cutter: these will be wanted to embellish our M.S: on my account, [...] pray pick up ^from y^r naval friends what you can respecting the unpublished discoveries on the W. coast of america, especially those which lead into the confirmation of de Fonte's & de Fuça's sounds or inland seas. I saw last spring a map by one Duncan who had actually penetrated deep into the last, & proved that we have all been rash in our [...]censure of those two spaniards. the map did not belong to the friend who shewed it me so I could not borrow it. I must try to get a sight of it again, to correct a passage in my arctic zoology: The new edition of the London for a while prevents the progress of that work; above 100 pages of London, are printed & the whole will appear at or about Christmas. The affair is no longer secret. As soon as the arctic zoology. is printed Moses will work on our copies:² at present M^r Storer engrosses him for the journey London. I am very much obliged to Sir Rich^d Worsely for his liberality. & request you to deliver my best thanks. I am glad to hear of the discovery at Sir G. Cornwal's.*ⁱ

I do not love reasoning Admirals: If they dislike the service [...]Let them retire & growl in private, & not infect the whole servicenavy with discontents productive perhaps of another 27^th of July.³ As to me I cannot make up my mind about this war:⁴ but let the cause be [...]iswhat it will, since we mustare plunged into it, it is the duty of every good man to contribute all his might to get us well & honorably out of the affair. The 25^th of november⁵ will open the scene; & think we may ^then judge with impartiality on matters which are now enveloped in darkness.

adieu
Y^rs most truely

Tho. Pennant.

I inclose what a partial friend sent to me it is designed for a magazine. you may paste it in my opuscula

I beg y^r opinion of the prints of Cranmer: whether that with or without the beard is authentic.⁶The head ingraved by Virtue from Holbein, or that in Thoroton's notinghamshire,⁷ are reckon’d the most authentic, but there is one in the Herologia which I dare say is authentic, because they were all the prints in general in that publication, are suppos’d to be taken from original pictures. R.B. -/

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Editorial notes

1. See 1112.
2. Since the first edition of Arctic zoology had appeared in 1784–5, it is possible that Pennant refers here to the early stages of publishing the second edition.
3. The Anglo-French naval crisis of 1778 produced an indecisive battle between French and British fleets off the island of Ushant on 27 July.
4. This may refer to the Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790–2), which involved the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India and the East India Company.
5. The seventeenth Parliament of Great Britain, led by William Pitt the younger, was summoned on 12 June 1790 but its opening session was prorogued until 25 November that year. Hist P.
6. Richard Bull's answer follows in his hand immediately after the question.
7. See Thomas Cranmer.