Apologises for delay in sending lichens and can only send thirty for Davall's collection. Parcel of newspapers from [William] Este still waiting for Davall, the paper is now at an end and he is fled abroad for debt.
Asks Davall's opinion of "English Botany", which he now claims as his own and its aim "to make botany pleasing & popular, so [Davall] must pardon trifling". Took more pains with "Flora Lapponica", especially the synonyms as he means to correct citation, so it requires more serious criticism. Sends [James] Dickson's third and fourth dried plant fascicules which completes the work, relieved to be free from its drudgery. Sends pamphlets on the slave trade, "a matter much talked of now". [Adam] Afzelius and François [Borone] have sailed [for Sierra Leone]. Sends capsule of 'Mesembryanthemum' from Cape of Good Hope, gives care instructions; a German professor has figured it as a flower under new genus 'Redeviva'. Arranging his shells. [William] Aiton [(1731-1793)] delighted with seed of 'Arenaria grandiflora'. Davall owes [James] Sowerby and Dickson money.