To HENRY MACAULAY, 12 DECEMBER 1825

MS: University of Texas. Address: Henry Macaulay Esq / Liverpool.

50 Great Ormond St./Deer. 12th. 1825

My dear Henry,

I send you the best maps which I have been able to procure upon the conditions which you imposed. For 3 guineas I could have procured Arrowsmith's Atlas – a very excellent set – indeed the best extant. I think however that those which I send you are very respectable. They do not quite take in the changes of modern times. But that is perhaps no disadvantage, if you wish to study the history of Europe previous to the French Revolution.

Apropos of the French Revolution, – a mercantile revolution – aperfect reign of Terror is going on around us. The country bankers, it is said I do not know with what truth, have deluged the country with their paper – and this deluge, like other deluges, is beginning to break the banks – a decent pun that! But seriously all is confusion and dismay in the city and has been so for a week or more. But I suppose you know as much or more of these things than we. Heaven send that James may be safe – and that David may have as little reason for apprehension as when the King's Ship bombarded his steamboat the other day!

Jane is very poorly. A second blister has just been applied to her. The rest of us are well. At this present writing the sun is darkened – nothing is to be seen but an orange-coloured fog.