“Your letter gives me some comfort, and indeed much coincides with my own view of the Merryman’s* case. Certainly he presents more sore places to the eye of the amateur than most men. Moreover his coin is now about cried down—at least hardly current. He is stampt as a joker, and therefore dare not joke: not to mention that hard figures of arithmetick are too hard to be got over by figures of rhetorick. All these things, and his gout and irritability, I try to console myself withal, but still I own I am somewhat low—not so much at what we are to have, which is most excellent in its way—but at what we have lost, which is by far the best thing in the world—namely, the Spinning Jenny,† Vesey,‡ Kew, Bellamy and Co. It was indeed too good a thing to happen. . . .”
