Autograph letter signed : London, to Catherine Alexander, Countess of Caledon, 1828 October 18.

Responding to a letter from Lady Caledon and saying that she believes she is describing a plant of the species "Bombax or silk cotton": "... and as far as I can trust my own Botanical Knowledge they must be Bombax Heptaphyllum but this will be ascertained by your counting the lobes of the leaves. if they are just seven in most of the leaves then it is so if not they are most probably the Bombax [Enanthos], a more beautiful species (& of which if you please I can send you a drawing) of a delicate lilac color"; writing further about Bombax trees: "Most of the Bombaxes grow to an enormous size -- I have been in a Canoe large enough to contain forty persons, hewn out of a single stem of Bombax"; quoting extensively from a letter by the art dealer George Augustus Wallis to her husband regarding a painting by Anthony van Dyck which Lord Caledon is considering purchasing, with particular focus on how and when Caledon should make his payments and the artistic value of the painting (see MA 9189.1 for background); describing her husband and herself as hard at work: "[I am] putting together an account of the Turks, for the benefit of the ladies & Gentlemen who will have to talk of Russia & Turkey this winter, as it is supposed the retreat from Varna does not at all put an end to the war"; saying that she has heard news of Lady Hardwicke (Lady Caledon's mother), but that she has not seen her recently: "indeed it was no season to see any body who was not actually compelled by business to remain in London"; mentioning their friends Henry and Julia Hallam and discussing reviews of Henry Hallam's recently published Constitutional History of England; commenting on the role of the historian: "It may be right & I believe it is so, that the actors in politics should agree to go together on one side or the other, & to take Measures & opinions in the great mass & not in detail -- but the office of the historian is surely to give each individual actor & opinion its proper weight & either praise or censure without the partiality to which living actors must be subject in order to bring about the most of such things as are approved & prevent the adoption of the most that is disliked: though among the things prevented there may be desirable items, & among those done, some to reprobate"; adding in a postscript information about what kind of conditions the Bombax tree thrives in, based on her observations in Brazil.