I leave London to-morrow morning very early for Gloucestershire, from
whence I shall return some time before your next meeting at the King of
Clubs, so that I hope you will do me the favour to come to Brook Street
when you visit town on that occasion.
... This letter will accompany that part of my MS.[155] which refers to
you. I hope I have not in any respect misapprehended you; and, however
we may differ in opinion on the subjects that we have so often
discussed, I trust you will not think that I have exceeded the bounds of
fair criticism in my remarks on the passages of your pamphlets which I
have selected for animadversion. The printing goes on briskly. We have
had a sheet a day since the commencement, and eleven sheets are now
corrected. In their printed form they appear worse, in my eyes, than
before; and I need all the encouragement of my partial correctors[156]
to keep alive a spark of hope respecting their reception. I wish it were
fairly out of my hands; and, that it may not be delayed, I have taken
every precaution that it shall proceed uninterruptedly in my absence. As
yet I have no misgivings about the doctrines themselves; all my fears
are for the language and arrangement, and above all that I may not have
succeeded in clearly showing what the opinions are which I am desirous
of submitting to fair investigation.
I hope that college affairs will no longer occupy an undue proportion of
your attention, but that you will be able to give a finishing hand to
the works which you are about to publish. Mrs. Marcet[157] will
immediately publish a second edition[158]. I have given her my opinion
on some passages of her book, and have pointed out those which I know
you would dispute with me. If she begins to listen to our controversy,
the printing of her book will be long delayed; she had better avoid it,
and keep her course on neutral ground. I believe we should sadly puzzle
Miss Caroline, and I doubt whether Mrs. B. herself could clear up the
difficulty.
From some conversation which I had yesterday morning with Mr. Murray, it
appears that Torrens has been offering his book to him; but Murray is
very lukewarm in the negotiation, and really very much underrates
Torrens' talents. He thinks that the sale of Torrens' best work, that on
corn[159], was very limited; he talked of it's not having exceeded 150
copies. Since writing the above I have seen Mr. Hume[160]; he tells me
that he has heard that the directors are about to institute an inquiry
into the state of the college themselves....
Very truly yours,
DAVID RICARDO.