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• Preface
• A Memoir of Ricardo With Addenda
• Note On the Authorship of the Memoir
• Addenda to the Memoir of Ricardo
• I.: Introductory
• II.: The Family of Abraham Ricardo
• III.: The Delvalle Family
• IV.: Ricardo’s Childhood and Education
• V.: Independence and Marriage
• VI.: The Wilkinsons
• A Family Who’s Who
• I.: David Ricardo’s Brothers and Sisters
• II.: Ricardo’s Children
• Ricardo In Business
• Ricardo In Business
• I.: As a Jobber On the Stock Exchange
• II.: As Loan Contractor
• III.: A Canard
• IV.: Investments and Estates
• V.: Ricardo’s Will
• A Selection of Family and Private Letters
• I: Early Letters to J. H. Wilkinson
• 1.: Ricardo to Wilkinson1
• 2.: Ricardo to Wilkinson1
• 3: Ricardo to Wilkinson1
• 4: Ricardo to Wilkinson2
• 5: Ricardo to Wilkinson1
• 6: Ricardo to Wilkinson1
• Other Correspondence With J.h. Wilkinson
• II: ‘ricardo’s Letter to the Old Doctor’
• III: The Fraud of 5 May 1803
• IV: The Loan of 1807
• V: Jacob Ricardo
• VI: Two Sisters Decline a Present
• VII: A Visit to Cambridge
• VIII: A Letter to a Wine Merchant
• IX: The Cumberland Affair
• 1.: Sydney Cumberland to Ricardo3
• 2.: Sydney Cumberland to Ricardo1
• 3.: George Cumberland to Ricardo1
• 4.: Ricardo to George Cumberland 1
• 5.: George Cumberland to Ricardo1
• 6.: Ricardo to George Cumberland
• X: A Servant and Two Masters
• XI: Fanny’s Marriage
• Edward Austin Sen. to Ricardo 3
• Ricardo to Edward Austin Sen. 1
• XII: Ricardo to Miss Mary Ann
• From Maria Edgeworth’s Letters to Her Family
• 1.: To Her Stepmother Mrs Edgeworth From Gatcomb Park 9 Nov. 1821
• 2.: To the Same From Gatcomb Park 10 Nov. 1821
• 3.: To Her Sister Lucy Edgeworth From Gatcomb Park 12 Nov. 1821
• 4.: To Her Aunt Mrs Ruxton From London 9 March 1822
• Journal of a Tour On the Continent 1822
• Introductory Note to the Journal of a Tour On the Continent
• Appendices
• (a.) Bibliography of Ricardo’s Works
• (b.) a Survey of Ricardo Manuscripts
• (c.) Commonplace Books
• (d) Ricardo’s Library
• Supplement to Volume I New Evidence On the Subdivision of Chapter Viii of the ‘principles’ 1817
• Supplement to Volume Iv Notes On ‘a Reply to Mr. Say’s Letters to Mr. Malthus’
• Corrections to the First Printing of the Previous Volumes*

5

ricardo to wilkinson1

Dear Wilkinson

I learnt, with much concern, the manner in which you were affected at my house on monday last.—You attach an importance to this proof of my good wishes, which I am sure on cooler reflection you must be satisfied it does not deserve.—The merit of a donor materially depends on his ability, and little would have attached to me, if with the ample means which I possess I had not endeavored to render you a real not a nominal service. After all, the sum what is it? in my view small indeed if it perform what I should hope it would.—I wish it to clear you from the incumbrances which have been so long weighing heavy on you, and rid your future prospect of the difficulties under which it laboured.—Nothing can be more discourageing than working, as you have done, for many years against the stream, and to remove incumbrances which were neither caused by dissipation or extravagance, but in the attainment of what was necessary to the practise of your profession.—You will be cheared, I hope, in your fatiguing avocation, by the reflection that what you obtain by it will be your own, and the probability of being able to make some little provision for your family. I am a little disappointed in your thinking so much of what I have done.—Remember, my good fellow, that it was but the other day we started together,—I mean that my prospects were no better if so good as yours,—we compared notes, and we made calculations of the probable amount of my expences. In our course what different success has attended us? and now forgetting the spot from whence we took our departure, you are overwhelmed because I dispense one atom of my success to my friend whom I esteem. If you do not wish to abash me, talk no more in the strain in which you have done, but let us meet and be as unrestrained and comfortable as ever. I embrace the opportunity which Sally has afforded me, by asking us for to-morrow, when I hope we shall get rid of all uncomfortable feelings.

Y^rs. truly

David Ricardo

Mile-end Wednesday even^g. [1 Dec. 1802]

[1 ]Addressed: ‘Mr. J. H. Wilkinson / Abchurch Lane’. Not passed through the post.

The date (which Ricardo indicates only as ‘Wednesday evening’) has been conjectured from this letter’s connection with the preceding one, which was written from the Stock Exchange and delivered by hand with a gift of money enclosed on 29 Nov. 1802, which was a Monday. It is assumed that Wilkinson went immediately to Ricardo’s house, and that this was the visit referred to at the start of the present letter as of ‘monday last’. (There is written on the MS ‘1796’, presumably added later by someone who was rearranging the correspondence. This is certainly wrong since neither Ricardo nor Wilkinson in that year were living at the addresses given in the letter.)