| Description | Dear Sir,
By taking a great deal of pains, there is a man found out who is accustomed to hire people to go to Vienna. He has, by the skill of a person employ'd, been tampering with Low, and took him to the German minister's house, and it can be proved upon him according to law and he will assuredly be convicted. Lord Shelburne desires me to assure you from him that, if you will prosecute the man, all your expences will be paid.
I wait for your answer by the return of the post. Was I in your case, I would do it. This is the man who has done us the great mischeif; he is a Birmingham man, a good workman, and has got a pretty fortune, and now lives in London.
I am, dear sir, your obedient servant,
Francis Garbett
I keep Low in town till I have your answer.
[Boulton to Garbett.]
Your favour of the 14th is but this instante come to my hand, owing to the post begin delay'd one day and a half by the greatness of the snow, and as you desire an answer per return there remains but little time for considerations.
I cannot give you an answer that will be satisfactory to my self. I wish to have this man prosecuted (Cottrell I suppose it is ) and yet I am deter'd from it by the immensity of business I am engaged in, in consequence of the absence of my partner, and the great encrease of it caused by his being abroad. My manufactory at Soho and my mercantile warehouse at Birmingham so divide my time as to employ my mind and hand closer than is comfortable to my self.
I have had dealings with Cottrell for two years past, in which he has aquitted him self to my satisfaction, and therefore it would appear ungracefull in me to be the prosecutor-but that is not so great an objection as encreasing the objects of my attention, which are already too numorouse for so distinctness. I presume it will cause me a journey to London, which would much unhinge my present schemes; and, as I presume any other person would answer equaly as well for a prosecutor, I therefore wish you would be so obligeing as to excuse me and fix upon another. I regard not the expence half so much as the time and inconvenience it will plunge me into.
I hope you'l work up the affair to sufficient maturity before you do strike, and then strike home; and I hope Lord Shelburn will not think me wanting in respect, nor in inclination to do that duty I owe to him and my country-no, that is not with me the case, I assure you; my own private interest I am not a slave to, but my present engagements would fall into confusion by my abscence a few days. |