Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 16 May 1791

Dear Sir

I thank you for your papers. The last I have read with more pleasure as that part which contains Fox’s speech is a strong confirmation of the theory of the general & inevitable rascality of our leaders of factions. His former speeches deceived many friends of the French revolution. An old acquaintance of mine, Mackintosh, has almost satisfied my desideratum of an able & popular answer to Burke. Christie, likewise an old friend, from his closeness of thought & habitual accuracy as well as his strong sense will serve the same good cause essentially. Both will be books more to the purpose than Payne’s. Mackintosh is already much sought here.

Call at Nichols’s <printer> Red Lion passage Fleet Street & if the copies of my paper <on iron> be ready, bring or send them, first giving M^r J. Hawkins a copy & other persons you think proper, for I have ordered plenty.

I did not expect M^r Hawkins to be a convert to my doctrine. Neither did I expect he w^d be able to advance any material objections against a conclusion so palpable. He observed 1. that the quotations from Ferber were irrelevant, for the ancient basaltes are granite. Now look only to Ferber’s words ‘common black basaltes’. If M^r H means that most ancient blocks of basaltes are granular when closely inspected, that is true & a strong argument in my favour. That very piece which I shewed him is so, though he observed it was true basaltes. 2. He said I had not quoted Werner not quite fairly. I have said that D^r Hutton had near Edin^r observed phænomena the same as those upon which ~~Hutton~~ <Werner> founds ~~the~~ <his> objections to the fiery origin of basaltes. M^r Hawkins has left with me a no. of a journal in which Werner acknowledges the absolute identity in the most express terms. Be so good as say to M^r Hawkins that his books &c shall be safely returned & soon. The MS. w^d have been returned & I am sorry it was not before he left Oxford but for a mistake of my boy’s – I hope we shall have you here soon – Yours

T Beddoes

Sunday –

If Mr. Hawkins c^d give me a specimen of true Wernerian Wakke, I should be glad –

Address: Davies Giddy Esq / at M^r Hawkins’s / Chandos Street / Cavendish Square / London
Endorsement: Doctor Beddoes / May <1791> the 16^th
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/15

The full versions of these letters with textual apparatus will be published by Cambridge University Press.