is the surest and best way to know our true interest; yet I flatter myself that my little essays may be useful, at least they may be no bad beginning; and you know it is easy to add to a work once begun. But, if the work is known to be mine, the very name will condemn it, and render it useless to my country[1].
Whatever the faults may be, I have publickly applied to you to amend them, before the bearer's mistake made me determine this private application to you: And I must say, that I shall reckon it no small degree of honour, if you take that trouble upon you.
In the mean time, I shall beg the favour of you to keep a secret, which no other person but my printer, my bookseller, and the bearer, knows.I am,
Reverend sir, your most obedient servant,
- ↑ The dean, in his Answer to the Memorial, which was published before he had received this letter, says, "I received a paper from you, whoever you are, without any name of author or printer, and sent, I suppose, to me among others without any distinction. It contains a complaint of the dearness of corn; and some schemes for making it cheaper; which I cannot approve of." After objecting to several particulars in sir John Browne's plan, the dean adds, "Sir, upon the whole, your paper is a very crude piece, liable to more objections than there are lines: but, I think, your meaning is good, and so far you are pardonable."
