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212.: ricardo to trower1[Answered by 214] - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 7 Letters 1816-1818 [1816]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 7 Letters 1816-1818.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


212.

ricardo to trower1
[Answered by 214]

Dear Trower

Before I leave London, for a very few days, I am desirous that you should know that I applied the morning after I saw you to the proper officer in the Vote Office of the House of Commons, to get you a set of Parliamentary papers, but I am sorry to say without success. It seems that a very limited number of copies are printed besides those distributed to the members: these are the perquisite of two gentlemen in the office, but they are all disposed of, and at no price can a single copy now be obtained there. To console you under your disappointment, I can assure you that it will give me great pleasure to lend you, whenever you may want them, any of my papers or reports. The report of last year respecting the employment of children in Manufactures2 should have been sent to you in town the other day, but I did not know your direction. I heard you say something about Montague Place, but I knew not at whose house you were to be found there. This year there have been very few reports,—the only one of importance is a very thick one containing the laws in reference to Roman catholics in the different protestant countries of Europe.3 If you would like to have this, as well as the one before named, I will send them to you by the coach, and you may keep them for a twelvemonth if you please.

I called yesterday on my printer, and he appeared more inclined, than on the day you were with me, to promise that my book should be out on the Monday following the next.1 When you read it remember that I want from you the candid opinion of a friend, both respecting the matter and manner. Independently of the desire which I have to form a correct judgement of the merits and demerits of the work, the opinions of those, whose opinions are worth having, will enable me to make such alterations in it as may render it more fit for the public eye if a second edition should be required—therefore I request you not [to be]2 sparing in your criticism.

I hope that on your return home you found Mrs. Trower and your children well, and that the former approved of the manner in which you executed your various commissions in London. If any were omitted I fear I must share the blame: the incessant talk which I kept up during our walk was well calculated to drive more important matters from your mind. I hope too that you will reconsider your resolution of not visiting London this spring. Living so near town it is a duty which you owe to yourself and to your friends to meet them at least once in the year.

With best wishes to Mrs. Trower in which Mrs. Ricardo most cordially unites, I am

Dear Trower Very sincerely Yrs.

David Ricardo

[1 ]Addressed: ‘Hutches Trower Esqr. / Unsted Wood / Godalming / Surry’. MS at University College, London.—Letters to Trower, XII.

[2 ]‘Report of the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the State of the Children employed in the Manufactories of The United Kingdom, 25 April–18 June 1816’, Parliamentary Papers, 1816, vol. iii.

[3 ]‘Report from the Select Committee appointed to report the nature and substance of the Laws and Ordinances existing in Foreign States, respecting the Regulation of their Roman Catholic Subjects, in Ecclesiastical matters, and their intercourse with the See of Rome, or any other Foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction’, Parliamentary Papers, 1816, vol. vii A. ‘Supplementary Papers’ to ditto, ordered to be printed 28 March 1817, ib. 1817, vol. xv.

[1 ]7 April. Publication of the Principles was delayed till 19 April.

[2 ]MS torn.