BIB_ID
106116
Accession number
MA 2063
Creator
Day, Thomas, 1748-1789.
Display Date
England, 1789.
Credit line
Purchased, 1960.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 26.0 x 20.1 cm
Notes
The date of writing is not provided however the references to the books by Dixon and Portlock make it likely the year was 1789. Day died on September 28, 1789.
The books published by Dixon and Portlock were each published in London in 1789 and with the identical title are "A Voyage Round the World; but more particularly to the North-West Coast of America...Captains Portlock and Dixon. Captain Dixon's book was published by George Goulding and Captain Portlock's book was published by John Stockdale and George Goulding.
The accounting he asks for on his book likely refers to the third volume of Sandford and Merton, published in 1789.
The books published by Dixon and Portlock were each published in London in 1789 and with the identical title are "A Voyage Round the World; but more particularly to the North-West Coast of America...Captains Portlock and Dixon. Captain Dixon's book was published by George Goulding and Captain Portlock's book was published by John Stockdale and George Goulding.
The accounting he asks for on his book likely refers to the third volume of Sandford and Merton, published in 1789.
Summary
Acknowledging receipt of copies of Dixon's and Portlock's books, explaining what Stockdale interpreted as anger in his last letter and commenting on the seeming lack of necessity for each of them to write their own book when they were on the same voyage; saying "Indeed even now the matter with your explanation is not mended; you had before sent me 2 copies of Dixon: you now send a third of Portlock, which can only contain the same things in other words; as the two captains set sail in company, & never parted till they were coming home;" asking for an accounting of his book and chiding him for his negligence in failing to provide his balance; referring to his impatience with him saying "But, if you take the trouble of reading that letter over again, more especially with the assistance & commentaries of Mrs. Stockdale, you will find the part which you think most violent anger, nothing more than good humour & jests - Indeed I am not sorry that you begin to discover a little impatience of being jested with, as I take it to be a sign of your thriving in the world. There are generally two causes of a man's growing more delicate upon these occasions; his getting rich, or else his wife's putting him into a genteeler shape of life. As I do not imagine it to be the last of these reasons, I must attribute it to the first. But whatever be the cause, I never take the liberty of jesting with any man, any farther than I have reason to think it agreeable, and therefore, if you will favour me with an account of the exact quantity of respect that you wish me to treat you with you may depend upon my exactitude in complying with it."
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