Sending a parcel to Roscoe containing "Exotic Botany"; thanks for his flattering letter. Defends his response to Mr Caley in the "Monthly Magazine" [who had criticised Smith's "Flora Britannica" and Linnaeus' use of language]; he seldom quarrels, but when he does "it is best to do it decidedly, & have done with it", and is happy that he has had so few literary quarrels, aside from with Lamarck and [William] Curtis.

As executor of Arthur Bruce's will sends Smith copy of the excerpt from it [on second folio, in a different hand] bequeathing Smith the whole of Bruce's herbarium. Short obituary of Bruce and further details of his will.