Posterity by Dorie McCullough Lawson Page A

England I find, as I have done on a former occasion, that I should have been recalled to Europe for the mere gratification of a few Friends & acquaintances; the whole of whom I dare say may long to see me, but none of whom,
can know
the Intentions, the Cares, and the Anxieties which Your Father feels toward
Your
welfare, that of your Brother and equally that of your most kind Mother—The Die is however cast.—I have given up my urgent wishes to revisit the Floridas, and a certain portion of the Western & Northwestern portion of our own beloved Country—and unless you write in answer to my last letters to you on this subject,
with open thoughts of your own
that
I
may remain in America, depend upon what I say at the begaining of this—God willing I and us will be (God willing) with you on the 4th of July next.—
    Fearing that you are troubled for the want of money, I will exert myself to the very utmost to send you forthwith 2. or 3. or 4 hundred pounds to alleviate the difficulties (if any there are) in your calls for cash.—I have already written to Doc
r
Parkman to exert himself in trying to have some advances made on a/c of the 2
d
Volume at Boston & have requested to forward you if successful whatever he may get immediately. I shall in a few days go to Savannah to try with W
am
Gaston to do the same there.—I wish you had made it
a point
to have sent me the 20 Volumes for which I have so often written to you.—through these I could have sent you perhaps one thousand pounds—but now this is all over and I must do the best I can without any of them but 2 Copies—
    I can do no more in England than you have done—depend upon it the Southern part of that Country will be of no effect when I go there.—America I am sure is the Country that will support us after all.—
    This day the N
os
34 & 35 for this City and for Columbia College have arrived in Port—
but I have not seen them yet
.—All the N
os
by the President were
Wet
& good for nothing—These have been sold at auction in New York and have I been vexed enough on that account.
    I ask of you most earnestly not to ship any thing more in this
slack manner
—If Havell will not see that our Work is properly packed,
see to it yourself
.—
    I shall reach England I hope with as many Drawings of Water Birds as will compleat the 3
d
Volume of our Work—but to tell you the truth it will prove a most wonderful thing if the 4
th
Volume does contain 100 plates. You are afraid of New Species coming in—I am greatly afraid of the want of them—but enough of this—when we meet all will be understood in a few weeks, and in
a few months
I must return to Our Country to compleat my researches, and procure
here
(America) subscribers to enable us all to become one day independent of the World &
particularly of England!
    Long ere this reaches you I hope you will have received the Duplicate paper sent you for Louden's Magazine, and that also M
r
Louden will have inserted it in his Journal—that, that paper may produce
some
effect on the mind of many, I have no doubt, but that it will be an equivalent to the representations of my character being false is quite another affair. —
here Rattlesnakes
are known to climb trees—to feed on Squirrels—&
c
—
here
Vultures are known to have
no sense
of
Smell
&
c
but all that
we
know of these matters will require a Century of Time to establish these
facts in the Eyes of the British Public
.—
    Our Work will become
important
even long ere it is compleated; for this reason it is imperiously necessary that every exertion in our power should be kept up,
with truth, firmness, dignity and consistency
from begainning to end—that the World and Naturalists especially will become satisfied that when finished, Our Work will be the standard of American Ornothology, I have no doubt, but as this will in all probability only appear after my Death, you & your