Letter 4477

[fol. 105] Honrd Sir I gladly take this Opportunity to thank you for ye many Instances of your Favour & Kindness to me. The Disproportion there is between your station in Life & mine, renders all Returns impossible but such as are the result of a gratefull Heart & a warm Acknowledgment. The Gentleman who has the Honr to deliver this to you, has been very conversant with ye Practice of Physick upon ye Coast of Guinea, & is by much the most qualify’d of any Person I have ever met with to satisfie such Enquiries as you may think proper to make in Relation to that Country. I know Sir cannot do a more acceptable Action than by affording you an Occasion of informing yourself (if there be any thing yet remaining you are uniform’d of) in Matters regarding natural knowledge. I am now preparing a second Edition of my Treatise on the the [sic] Diseases in these Parts. It has cost me a good deal of Pains & Observation & as it will be much larger & more compleat than ye former. I hope it will the better merit your Acceptance. I have had the misfortune to loose ye first Vol. of your Natural History of Jamaica, & know not how to repair a Loss I so much lament, unless it be Sir from your self. for they write me from England that it is not to be procur’d upon any terms among ye Booksellers. your Goodness, I know, will pardon this Freedom from one who highly honours you & who is proud of nothing so much as ye Liberty of declaring Himself Sir yr. most obedient humble servt. Richd Towne Barbados Apl. 30. 1732