Dear Sir

Rose hill near Wrexham
Denbighshire March 12^th
1798.

I am alarmed at y^r silence at [sic] you mentioned your annual confinement and that miss Bull was not so well as you could wish. I had also a fine drawing in Bentan designed for you returned. It was copied by the able Pococke & I thought w^d be acceptable. In lieu, I sent this week for y^r acceptance one of the few impressions of the famous march of [...] Gen^l: Goddard – cross the peninsula of India struck off fr^m my Hindoostan. I wish this anticipation may please you. I offer no rich friends copies ^of the entire work¹ in these evil days

we are in wales & every where else as far as I hear well content with the taxes: not only so, but Parochial subscr: are almost universally set on foot. That of Malpas in Cheshire was singular. 800^£ was raised in sums from 150^£ each to one penny ½ & one penny. The commonest laborers subscribed with alacrity.² my son's company had its subscription.³ it consists of 100 privates of which a third at lest gave guineas & ½ guineas. of the remainder none less than 5^s. apiece. This is all comfortable.

we all rejoice at the detection of the conspirators: & expect every post will bring us fresh detection.⁴ I stay here about a 12 days. if writing is not irksome, let me hope to hear fr^m you here. As to Goddards march please to send for it when you will to M^rs Mostyn's N^o. 72. Lower Grosvenour street.⁵

Best wishes attend miss Bull & yourself fr^m M^rs Pennant my son &
Dear Sir,
Y^r ever affect. friend

Tho. Pennant

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Editorial notes

1. Pennant probably refers here to the printed sections of his 'Outlines of the Globe'.
2. For a report of a meeting held at the Vestry, Malpas, on 20 February 1798, to raise subscriptions 'to support our country at this very arduous crisis', see Chester Courant, 27 February 1798. The report is followed by a lengthy list of subscribers, named alongside their contributions, with individuals contributing sums between one penny and £150 each.
3. On David Pennant's involvement in the militia, see 1208 n. 3.
4. The conspirators mentioned here, known as the 'Margate traitors', were lead by James O'Coigly (1761–98), an United Irishman, who entered England in the summer of 1797, and attempted to put together a pan-British revolutionary conspiracy. He returned in February 1798, but was arrested with four others at Margate, Kent, on the way to France, and executed as a traitor on 7 June 1798. Chris Evans, Revolution Debate: Britain in the 1790s (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), p. 154.
5. This member of the Mostyn family has not been identified.