“My Dear Sir.—I have just received your note of the 12th inst., and read with great concern the gloomy account it gives of the troubles and vicissitudes through which you have passed. The reverse in your circumstances, my dear sir, can have no other effect on me than to awaken a deeper interest in your welfare, and a stronger desire to be of service to you. Any aid that I can render in promoting the publication of your proposed work in America, you may command to the utmost. I rejoice to find that you are about to come forth again in that department of literature in which you first delighted me, and in which you have been so eminently successful. I see nothing of audacity in the undertaking. Recollect the age of Chaucer when he wrote his immortal tales. If you can furnish me with a manuscript copy of the earlier part of the work, and supply the subsequent part in sheets as struck off, so as to give some bookseller in America the decided start of his competitors, I think it highly probable I can get something for it to repay you for your trouble. A novel is a kind of work that the booksellers now always bid for the most eagerly, and the fame of your former productions in this line will ensure an offer. If the MS. or printed sheets are sent under cover to me from time to time, as they are ready, at the American Legation, I will forward them with the despatches, free of expense, and I have a literary agent in America who will negociate with the booksellers to the best advantage, free of charge, so that the experiment will cost you nothing. I would have called immediately on you to talk over this matter, but at this moment I am not as formerly my own master, and am in all the bustle of official arrangements, etc. The moment I can command a little leisure I will call on you, and I am sure that, in the interim, you will attribute the delay of my visit to the right cause.
“With kind remembrances to Mrs Godwin, I am, dear sir, very faithfully yours,
