Letter 1679

Byrd received Sloane’s letter ‘of the 7th of December last’. He has been looking ‘more narrowly for Mecoacanna’. He collected ’30 pounds’ last year, but was told it would cost ‘forty shillings and pound’ to ship and subject to a customs duty. Instead, he shipped an unspecified amount to Sloane. Byrd would like to know if it sells better as the whole root or cut into smaller quantities. If it sold well he would ship a ‘great Quantity’ in future. He shipped the product in a ‘Running ship’ and planned to send ‘some Raritys… by our Fleet’. Byrd inquires after the Royal Society and praises America for allowing men like himself to make a business out of ‘the works of nature’. He asks for Sloane’s ‘account of Jamaica’ and any other accounts of travel abroad, which he would pay for ‘out of the profits of the Cargo’. The cargo was sent with Captain Posford on the Harrison. He directs Sloane to a Mr Perry at ‘Leaden hall street for the ship’. William Byrd was a landowner, diarist, and agent of the colony of Virginia in London from 1697 to 1704. He returned to Virginia on the death of his father and served the colony in several capacities (Paul David Nelson, Byrd, William (16741744), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68334, accessed 2 July 2013]).