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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 332.: mill to ricardo2[Reply to 329] - The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821

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332.: mill to ricardo2[Reply to 329] - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821 [1819]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 8 Letters 1819-1821.

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.


332.

mill to ricardo2
[Reply to 329]

My Dear Sir

I ought to have written to you yesterday, and fully intended so to do—but I was so often interrupted that I forgot.

I have read your article, which is excellent. Few observations have occurred to me; and those chiefly in the expression, which I have altered as I went on, in pencil.—Place’s commentary is more voluminous—he has written part of it in the margin, and part on a separate paper which shall be sent to you.3

I shall possibly not return the M.S. for a few days; as I shall run it over again; and write more fully what I particularly mark either as excellence or defect. I have a letter from Napier today who says if he has the article from you any time in November, it will do—So that you see there is no need for hurry.

I met your brother Moses at Dr. Lindsays1 yesterday, along with Mr. Belsham, at a turtle feast. Your brother tells me he is soon to visit you, and tempted me by telling me how much he wished I should go along with his lady and himself.

I shall write to you at length in a day or two—but am anxious you should know as soon as possible that your article will do you all the credit such an article is capable of doing. All old points are well explained; and there are new points which exhaust the subject.

With best compliments to Mrs. Ricardo and the rest of your circle, I am always &.c.

J. Mill

Please to thank Mr. Smith most kindly in my name for lending to you on my account the pamphlet of Mackintosh—it is exactly the pamphlet I had heard of. I beg you will remember me most particularly to himself and to Mrs. Smith. I hope he is not in a great hurry for the volume, as I wish to read Dr. Parrs controversy—and wish for time to make some use of a few things of Mackintosh.

[2 ]Addressed: ‘David Ricardo Esq. / M.P. / Minchinhampton / Glostershire’.

MS in R.P.

[3 ]Place’s comments on Ricardo’s article ‘Funding System’ are not extant, but see letters 341–343 which were occasioned by them.

[1 ]James Lindsay, D.D. (1753–1821), Unitarian minister, political reformer, and an old friend of Mill. (See Bain, James Mill, p. 120–1.)