Autograph letter signed : Lisbon, to [Sir Philip Francis], 1779 Mar. 17.

Saying he is recovered from a long illness; asking if Francis might "contrive to get some account of the indian (or perhaps the chinese) manner of writing; whereby the marks on paper do not stand for words but for Ideas, I bet you will get it for me. All that we europeans have ever heard on the subject has been said by people who condemned it without having the least knowlege of what they were so highly disapproving. I have a surmize in its favor. Certain it is that the method of writing for arithmetic which we call arabic characters, is infinitely preferable to what either the greeks or romans used, and I find it is borrowed from the chinese or indians. If one cou'd get a good way of considering their system of orthography, one might perhaps find it equally superior to any thing that has ever yet appeared in Europe. Our writing is allowed by Lock and all the most considerate men who have treated the subject to be wonderfully defective. Words are marks, and very awkward and uncertain marks, for ideas, and our writing is marks for words so that we are going on in a strange way while we are using marks for marks. The chinese way is infinitely better. It will also have this further advantage; that as it is not writing words, but ideas the learned thro'out the world will understand one another, which never can happen while they write the words of different languages. Thus the arabic mark, 5, is no particular word. A greek reads it, pente; a Roman, quinque; and an englishman five."