Downing July 25^th 1783.

Dear Sir

I am very glad of y^r success with M^r Grose. I know his good nature so well that he will deny nothing in reason. Moses began y^r work on Tuesday & goes on with that spirit that I may peromise the first volume in the course of next month. Let a welshman preach up patience for the rest. I am in Love with the performance of in your book: & envy the fair fingers you possess which so adroitly puzzle about the inserted & non-inserted.¹ a prodigious spectacle invites you & them to Chester the 16^th of September.² If you will come before the 16^th how happy shall I be, for m that I & mine may receive Lecture Lectures [sic] in paste-ology.³

Thane's heads heads [sic] are admirable. Thanks for them: but place them to account. how did I forget to bespeak the arch knave Dudly E. of Leiceter? valde desideranda⁴, The small views after Buck. Prison scene from Hayley's Howard. Harris's view of Chester cathedral. & the canal bridges.⁵

In the course of my enriching my scotch Tours⁶ I think I have some duplicate prints at y^r service. I ought to present you with a set of those from Cordiner's Letters if you have yet had them.

The Kings speech & the fall of the stocks are melancholy confirmations of y^r suspicions.⁷ If we fall into another war inevitable ruin must ensue.

I am Dear Sir
Y^r very faithful
humble Serv^t

Tho. Pennant.

I beg my excuses may be made to M^r Storer for the trouble I give Sir R. M. being absent.⁸

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Editorial notes

1. A reference to the work carried out by Bull's daughters, Elizabeth and Catherine, possibly accompanied by their half-sister Levinia Luther, on his extra-illustrated volumes.
2. Pennant refers to a 'Festival of Music' to be held at Chester between 16 and 20 September 1783. It included performances of several oratorios by Handel, a fancy ball, and concluded with a public breakfast to the accompaniment of 'Catches and Glees'. Chester Chronicle, 18 July 1783; 5, 19 and [27] September 1783.
3. The reference to 'I and mine' suggests that members of the household besides Pennant and Moses Griffith (see 1011) may have been involved in 'pasting'. His wife Ann Pennant (née Mostyn) and elder daughter, Arabella, are possible candidates. On Bull and Pennant's lack of overt reference to Elizabeth and Catherine Bull's involvement in pasting, and the underlying protection of females from explicit and acknowledged participation in the masculine world of antiquarianism, see Peltz, 'The Extra-Illustration of London', vol. 2, pp 502–6.
4. 'greatly desired'.
5. The view of the Chester canal bridges mentioned here has not been identified.
6. See 1026, n. 2.
7. The King's speech at the close of the session in 16 July 1783, when he prorogued Parliament to 9 September, mentioned that 'the consideration of the affairs of the East Indies will require to be resumed as early as possible', talking of 'terms of pacification' which he believed 'the several powers concerned' were much inclined to. This does not seem to corroborate Pennant's gloomy outlook, especially since the Anglo-French contest in the East Indies, afoot since 1778, was brought to a conclusion with the signing of the Paris Treaty on 3 September 1783 (see 1016, n. 1).
8. Pennant asks Anthony Morris Storer, who was an MP, for franks, in the unavailability of franks from his kinsman Sir Roger Mostyn.