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But at the same time comes a letter from my father dated Augt 8th, desiring to know
whether I ever mean to see England again during his life. My answer is, that I
am preparing for a visit to that country with all possible expedition: and that I hope
in the course of a fortnight's to be on the wing. The season of snow-roads would
have been a much more convenient one for travelling: but the dispersion of the greater
part of the English, especially of those who are more particularly attached to me [Aiton and Beattie]
would render my stay till that time much less comfortable than it has been hitherto. The sudden
breaking up which is the unavoidable result of my Brothers indefinite imprisonment added to the
circumstance of the change of ownership in the estate, throws the whole weight of his business into
hands not best qualified for, and much averse to such a task.
What you have now read will I make no doubt be looked upon as sufficient reason for
passing over in silence most of the topics touched upon in your double letter. As to your pecuniary
requisition I answer it in the best and indeed only way in which I could answer it, viz
by a draught on Mr King. The events of war have thrown back, as you see, the fulfillment of
the expectations given in my letter of a fortnight or three weeks ago, to an uncertain period.
That fulfillment depended upon payment of money which it may perhaps require
personal sollicitation to obtain, though due from and promised by persons perfectly and instantly
able to fulfill such promise. In the mean time the 2000 Roubles mentioned in my
last have been or will have been distributed among persons to whom more was due, and
whom otherwise I must have seen some thrown into jail, others starving before my face,
My great apprehension was, lest the affair of the cloth should have appeared in your
for getting the money back, unaccompanied from the beginning with any intention of replacing
Laying all circumstances together, I can not but apprehend your finding some diffic
in avoid to make a change for the worse in the exterior of your appearance. Under the circumstances,
the generosity with which you acquiesce in the disappointment, m
impression on me. Rather than that should happen the greatest part of whatever income I possess
is most perfectly at your service. One room, somewhere not far from town, will hold me
as well as a thousand. Whether there be a bedstead in that room is a matter of great indifference.
Featherbeds I have long had an irreconcilable quarrel with: curtains I have quarrelled with and
discarded since I came to Russia. I am, how little reason soever there may be for it, a somewhat
prouder man than when I left England, and as my pride is not grounded upon wealth
poverty would make no abatement in it. I have lived in great luxury and in great simplicity:
in the latter much more to my comfort than in the former: nor is there any luxury which would
make up to me for the pain of being forced from occupations to which I am attached into company
for the conversation of which I have no relish.
It is not now worth while reckoning up how many letters of mine must have
miscarried, in some or all of which the cloth was mentioned, betwixt that of July which
you acknowledge, and the Inspection-house letters — One if not two in which Sir R.
Worsley was mentioned who staid a month with us. With the account of the duel went
a copy of a letter I had been writing to Prince Dashcoff, which as far as it went would
have served for our history as well as one addressed to you. A packet to you by Sea much about
that time inclosing one to Mr P. Carew appears also from your to have miscarried.
To Mr Richard King of the Six Clerks Coffee house Chancery Lane London
Crichoff in White Russia Sept.r 14/25 1787.
Sir /
At fourteen days after sight pay to Jeremiah Bentham of Queens Square Place Westminster
Secure or order on this my first bill of exchange (second not paid) fifty pounds eleven shillings
£ 50.11.7. and seven pence (value reced) on account of Yours &c Jeremy Bentham.
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Identifier: | JB/540/400/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 540.
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