| Description | (3 pcs.)
Dear Madam,
Least I should not have it in my power to write to you in the course of the present week, I take this opportunity of thanking you for your several letters which are unacknowledged, and for the trouble of sending to Dumergue, who has wrote me a very kind letter upon the occasion. I have been rather poorly for nine days past with a sick stomack and a bad head, but am now much better, though not quite well.
I have received three summons's to Stafford assizes on the 9th, viz. one for the grand jury and a second for a special jury in a very extraordinary will said to be made by Mr. Peter Garick, who dyed about three months ago and left his own fortune and all the reversionary right to the fortune left by David Garick to his widow for life, and afterwards to his brother Peter. As a jury man I can't say more at present. The weather is very cold and the coldest of all places is Stafford church, where the assizes are held, except the bellfree, where the grand jury sit. I shall therefore put on an aditional flannel jacket, and all, I fear, will not keep me warm, particularly if we should happen to be cooped up for 12 or 24 hours, for it will take a long time. Mr. Erskin has a fee of 300 guineas from the family of Garick's sister; the story is a pathetick one, and will be some reward for my trouble.
Now for business.
Two days ago Messrs. Gee and Eginton call'd upon me and acquainted me that they had been in the habit for some time past in drawing notes at two months after date and that they had kept their account with Taylor and Lloyd; that the whole and total amount of such notes or Bill Account did not amount to quite 600£; that T. L. & Co. had intimated to them they must have bills and not notes; that they had not yet received the subscription money for the print of Louis and his Family, and therefore were not able at present to take up their notes without drawing bills for that purpose as wanted. They requested me to guarantee them to smoe banker to the amount of 600, and proposed giveing me the personal security of three gentlemen who are all me of property and two of them very rich, viz. Mr. Thomas Wyatt of Wiltshire, who is steward to Mr. Delmee's estate and who gain'd last year upwards of £12,000 by the purchase of an estate; the second is Mr. Gibbs, a very large and opulent manufacturer in Birmingham of very respectable character, and I know he is rich; the third is Mr. Wyatt, a lining draper of Birmingham, who does a good deal of business and lives in a respectable way, but I know little of his fortune. These three gentlemen have offer'd their bond as a security to me, and on that basis I am induced to ask you to credit them to the amount of £600 under my guarantee, which I will give you in any form you may desire, but as they will want to draw £200 directly I have ventur'd to allow them to take that liberty, and so soon as I come to town, if you don't like it, I will find another means, as I am perfectly satisfy'd with their honest intensions and their industry, but I would not trust them with such a sum on their own personal security, although I am perswaded they are worth many times that sum and are now got into a currant and profitable business.
A line from you directed to me at Mrs. Keen's in Stafford will oblige, my dear madam, your faithfull friend,
M. Boulton
They promise you shall never be in advance and that they are willing to pay your commission. Remember me kindly to the three Pattys. I think I shall want one before I quit church on Thursday or Fryday next.
[Edited transcript.] |