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Every thing goes as well as it can go.
Do not fail to send me my Bibliothica Maritima by the first
post though you should not have time to write a single word. I hope
you have taken care to provide another copy of it.
Send also any other papers which you have of mine or for me which
can come by means of Mr Sneyd.
Remember that when ever it is required to send by sea any instruments &c
of steel, even brass to prevent their being rusted or discoloured it
is safest if not absolutely necessary to shut them up air tight
Corked & sealed in bottles or soldered in thin lead or tin
A Treatise on Practical Seamanship by Willm Hutchinson Mariner
& Boat-master at Liverpool 1777. Printed & sold for the author at all the
principal Sea ports in Great Britain. I brought it at a Mathematical
Instrument makers in Fairhill, price I think 12 shillings.
Falconers Dictionary. Pleschijeff had desired me to send for
these two books for him but I think I wont do it yet it may
convenient for me to let him have mine in case of my returning
to England this summer.
In Dr Falk's account of weighing Vessels page 33 in a note he speaks
of a book he published which procured him much esteem under the
title of "Ready Observator", enquire if it is to be had & send it
Page 31 of another work of his under the title of Seaman's
Medical Instructor. This work of his about day's diving Vessel
is very short of what I expected. The Philosophical reasoning is very
bad. His contrivances however were ingenious and his public spirit
very extraordinary. Hutchison's book mentioned about
excellent work and astonishment in a with respect to the Philosophiocal
reasoning, considering the apparent education of the man being originally
Cook onboard a Collier. He was however acquainted with
Ferguson and Smeaton and from them no doubt he profited
very much. Some of his best ideas he has "stolen by anticipation"
from me but I forgive him because he gives proof of their
expediency.
Mr Shairp told me Mr Foster never ,
but it was but the next day that Mr Pleschijeff brought his
old Tutor to see me. He looks as well as ever I remember
him and still reads every night & till 12 or 1 in the morning
without spectacles. He staid 3 or 4 hours with me. He seemed
very happy that I had been with Pleschijeff. He had had lodgings
in the English line but when the Dutchess of Kingston came
here she insisted upon his coming to her house. He
had not been out of doors before for a great while not because
he was ill but because he found no pleasure in going out in
winter weather. He desired me to give particular remembrances
to you & my father the first time I wrote. His Dutchess
is going
to Dresden next soon because people dont respect her enough here.
She keeps open house but cant prevail upon any but Russian
Officers who want a dinner to come & see her. The Empress is
polite to her in public but she has no private conferences
which is what she expected and what she had herself put
into the English papers.
Foster returns to England with
Sambowski probably the beginning of June. The latter
years rate comes back here to establish his Agricultural
He is to have the sons of poor clergy to make who are
free men from the profession of their father though poorer many of them
than slaves. A Village is to be built near here and he is to be
the chief Pape of it (the name they give to their priests).
He has money also for building a Greek church in London
He takes over I believe some of these of Papes
with him to England. I have got my boxes which he
brought over for me. Shairpe found them out for me. Sambowski
is not come here yet.
I had written a long letter for you about Moscow but lost with the
things I mentioned in my first letter from this place. The loss of this has
grieved me much more than that of my letter of recommendation.
It was so long since I had given you a letter good for anything and
will perhaps be long again before I shall give you another that
will be entertaining in any amount but that of the importance of its
contents to myself. I have not a moment to write about things
in general.
My friend Mr Pleschijeff is taken almost entirely
from me by the Grand Duke, I cant get him for above an
hour in the day and not always the some days I dont see him
at all. As to my health, I may now say that I am perfectly
recovered of my bruises, fevers, colds &c, and in such manner
that the sweet person of your dear brother will be no way disfigured
and no flaw crack or scar to be seen. There was a small
swelling in one of the leg bones but that even now seems to entirely
gone. Notwithstanding this I have not yet been out except the
one day which I told you of in my last; and this owing to a disorder
which however little danger there may from it, has kept me in
constant pain for the most part too violent to admit of my
writing or reading for these 3 days past. For this disorder you
may make my best acknowledgements to my father for, as it is from
him I have it by inheritance. You may guess I mean the piles.
This morning the pain is but very little and therefore I determine
to make you up a bit of a letter. I shall send this under cover to
Mr Frazer though I did not the others.
Mr Shairpe the Consul has paid me two visits, at the time of his
making me the first I had told my Servant to let nobody in to see me
to tell any body that came that I was asleep. He did so but Mr Shairpe
would not be contented with that answer, he followed him upstairs
and insisted upon looking into my room. The servant opposed him and
told him he would mark me. He then said I was so strongly recommended
to him that as I was ill he must see how I was lodged and he
would at least look into in at the keyhole. While they were whispering
together at the door I knocked and they finding I was not asleep
left the servant no excuse and so in he came. He staid about
an hour with me, I gave him the letter I had for him which
was saved by my having put it apart with a small packet I
had from Miss Shairpe: this I had sent by the son who called
on me before — no it was by Mr Peyrou that I sent it.
He told me how long he as well as all that all the English Line
had been expecting me. He offered all kind of services and told me
he would send Dr Gutherie to me not as a Physician (as he understood
I was provided with one who lodges in the same house as I ) but
as a friend. This Dr Guthrie you remember he was desired in his
letter to introduce me to.
In a day or two Dr Guthrie came.
I found him a man of very clear ideas, perfectly acquainted with
all physical knowledge pursuing at present in England a frequent
correspondent with Priestley Magellan and others of the
English Philosophers and a man of inventive genius himself I was
however able to communicate to him some new ideas which I picked
up in my way and which had not had time to reach him by
way of England in a regular way. He spoke very highly of "Crawford
"on heat" He had not heard as yet of the "Wax" nor "Keir's Metal"
but if he gets an account of that from me I shall get a great deal
more from him. There was a Premium given here in August
last at the Academy of Sciences for the best means of preserving Ships
from decay. Not only that Paper which gained the prize but the
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1780-04-08 |
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Correspondence |
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Samuel Bentham |
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