| Description | Madam,
I have your very obligeing letter of the 8th instant before me, referring to your letter of November last, which, polite and pleasing as it was, I am almost afraid to confess I receiv'd so long ago as November last, because it still remains unacknowledged. Neglect towards a lady who hath so many just claims to every mark of my attention is unpardonable, and therefore I submitt to any sentance you will please to pronounce, only let it be moderate by the consideration of my long illness, and a necessary abscence from home, and from business dureing my recovery.
A certain Lord who is upon the point of makeing a sumptuous entertainment for his friends in order to open and shew his new house, which he cannot do untill he hath received from me his order of gilt branches and tripods, his marble chymney piece decorated with ornaments of or-moulu, his silver candles with branches, vases, &c., &c., the exicution of which will shorten my next catologue and has been the cause of my delay in the finishing of your tea vase and waiters. As to the large waiter, it is not in my power at present to make it, for want of larger rolls in my mills. As to those of 12 inches diameter, I have never made any but such common tradeing things as I should be asham'd to send to you, madam. However, I will send two of them this week, which may be used untill I can send two good ones, and then they may be return'd. I will send the tea vase, an ink stand, and the two waiters in the course of three weeks, and will endeavour to do my self the pleasure of calling upon you in the approaching week, being under a necessity of makeing a flying journey to land for about three days.
Like a good Christian you render me good for evil, and send me one of your cassoletts, which I am sure is pretty, and it accords with your elegant taste. I thank you, madam, and assure you I will endeavour to avail my self of the favour, for I have need of every aid, as my business will not suffer me to appropriate but a very small portion of my time to the agreeable parts of it, for it is not necessary to attend to elegance in such articles of my manufacture as are destin'd for Siberia and America, or even some parts of Germany; but rather to attend to the bad taste of those countrys, and to adapt my self to every clime. Perhaps this may be so far advantageous as to assist in avoiding prejudices to any particular manner, and in leading one to the form of every object by the natural and original principles which constitute beauty or the reverse of it. Fashion hath much to do in these things, and that of the present age distinguishes it self by adopting the most elegant ornaments of the most refined Grecian artists; I am satisfy'd in conforming thereto, and humbly copying their style, and makeing new combinations of old ornaments without presumeing to invent new ones.
Could we once see the times when all Europe shall be of your opineon, that barbarous war should be abolished and the minds of princes fired with contentions in arts instead of arms; then should I look upon you, madam, as the first Amazon of those peaceful days, [and] should be more ambitious to serve as a subaltern in your army, than to be recorded in history for haveing discover'd, conquer'd, and murdred, some new continent. For I not only respect you as an encourager and defender of the arts, but as a parent and nursing mother of them, for you raise from the regions of Erebus the sooty ore which is the parent of all iron work; and 'tis agreed by all philosophers that iron is the foundation of arts, and is the original cause of the great difference between the knowing Europian and the uncultivated Indian-the idea at first seems extravagant, but when one considers that neither tool, machine, nor instrument of any kind, can be made without the use of steel, either in the thing itself or in the instrument with which 'tis made, and that the great distinction between man and all other animals of the Creation is that man and only man can make tools and use them, and that neither philosophical, mathematicall, or mechanical instruments can be made without steel, that printing, fire arms, nor any manufactures could have existed without them-I say, when we consider these things, we shall easily be reconcil'd to the idea.
I am, madam, with the highest regard, your much obliged and most obedient humble servant,
16 January 1772.
[Edited transcript.]
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