MY DEAR FRIEND,
I have received your letter; about four weeks after its date it came to hand, the cause of which I do not know. I was very happy to hear from you, and that you are in good health, as this leaves me at present. That you are chagrined at not receiving any account from me in the book affair, I am not in the least surprised, for if the case had been mine I should have been downright angry, indeed I have been ashamed to write my friend. I have been exceedingly unfortunate in your business. I shall state the matter to you. It is now about nine months ago since an acquaintance of mine, whose name is John Livingston, called on me and informed me that he was going to Scotland, that he had a brother of the name of Peter Livingston, who was at that time in Paisley, a stone mason, and that he intended to take the way to Paisley on his way home, which is nigh Stirling, in order to see his brother, as he was a person whom I could trust, being acquainted with him for some years past. I gave him what money I had collected for your books, which amounted to £2 18s, two guineas and a half in gold, five shillings and sixpence in silver, and a letter for you. Receiving no answer from you, and being unsatisfied in my mind concerning the money, I wrote over to Bury to the man with whom he had lived, and he informed me that he had received a letter from him from Edinburgh, and he had not been in Paisley, but intended to be there by September next, yet never mentioned anything of my affair in his letter, which has made me more uneasy. I have seen his comrade whom he wrought with, and he told me that he would write him in the course of a few days, and would mention my business to him and procure me all the information in his power. He gives Livingston a good character; but I am satisfied it was his duty to have written me, turn out which way it will. Misfortune comes not single-handed. I gave five copies of your book to Robert Blair, who you know lived in Preston at the time you lived in that place, and who was employed in the pedlar business for this some time past. I am informed he died in Bradford in Yorkshire, of a fever. I have not received one penny for them, although they were delivered and the money drawn for them. The Bolton people paid me except two copies, which it is doubtful if ever I shall receive, and two more at Stockport, which I think are safe. The other six which I sent to that place, I got paid for them. I have given you a true account of the business as it stands, but am sorry to add that from the severe pressure of the times, it is out of my power to send you anything at the present; on the other hand, I would have you to rest assured that you shall not lose one penny by me, and that in a short time I shall have it in my power to return you a satisfactory account of my Trust. My friend, it would give me an infinite deal of pleasure if, on the receipt of this, you would write and let me know that I do not live under the pressure of your displeasure as it would be truly grevious to me. You have ever, since our first acquaintance, possessed a very large portion of my respect and esteem, and I sincerely believe that on your part it was reciprocal, and to lose which would be to me a circumstance truly afflicting, therefore I entreat you to write. I have nothing new to inform you, but what is of a miserable nature; for were I to describe to you the wretched situation of the manufacturing part of this country, you would think I had ransacked the very, intricacies of Pandora's box to fill up my description; too much labour, and almost nothing for it; exceeding dear markets, and every other attendant evil fills up the cup of our misery. To say any more on the subject would be but like lifting up some melancholy dirge to your troubled mind, I would say, but you see my paper is filled up. Nevertheless, in prosperity or adversity, above or below, I am your sincere friend
WM. KIBBLE.
P.S.—I have opened this letter to inform you that a manufacturer of this place has shewn me a piece of Scotch muslin; it is a gauze open work with dotted whip. I partly understand how to do it, but not thoroughly. If you will be so kind as send me a description how it is done with the price of weaving, you will much oblige me. I could engage with a loom work of it, which, I think, would turn to advantage.
W. K.