Sends numbers as usual and encloses £15 note. Also sends a little bit of ulmin on elm bark, finds similar substance on oak, hornbeam, and horse chestnut and asks Smith's botanical friends to look out for it; has recommended it to the Society of Arts as excellent for finishing in water colours, in same way that Sir Joshua Reynolds [(1723-1792), painter] used 'Asphaltum' in oil.

Requests Smith to revise enclosed 4 numbers of "English botany" and number enclosed in last.

Sends two plants from [George] Don; cannot work out the 'Anthemis', which is near 'A. cotula', and asks if the 'Atriplex' is 'A. alba' of Gmelin.

Encloses fruit of 'Rosa rubella' at request of Mr Holme. Asks Smith's opinion on news from Europe and whether the "step of Austria" will end the war. Query on calyx of 'Rosa rubella' constant?". Suffering from gout in his left arm and hand.

Smith's letter and enclosure for [Richard Griffin, 2nd Baron] Braybrooke [(1750-1825)] delayed; hopes Smith has not lost anything which Braybrooke "could do in the case". His son on a tour of Ireland; young men of this day cut off from continental tours and "perhaps do well to see the more of their own country". Experiencing a cold summer; fruit all backward but they have more grapes than they can eat from vinery and has not eaten "such invaribly good melons as in this year - orange cantaloupe, & green fleshed Egyptian", credits Mr Knight's frames which "give equal depth from the glass to the plants throughout", two rough sketches in ink of new and old beds. Has only been shooting three times but gratified by accomplishment of his fancy for gun with vertical barrels instead of horizontal, explains previous difficulties making this work and the solution made by Forsyth.

Reports on his summer excursion: visited Sir Joseph Banks at Spring Grove, Smallbury Green, and his garden and "elegant dairy", afraid Banks will not walk properly again; the Bishop of Winchester's [Brownlow North] garden containing magnolias, tea trees, 'Salisburia adiantifolia', 'Arbutus andrachne', and rhododendrons; disappointed by Isle of Wight other than Sir Nash Grose's [(1740-1814), judge] house; impressed with Portsmouth's fortifications and dockyards, thinks that it will be a great loss if those of the 7000 [French] prisoners in Portchester Castle are stopped making their lace; also visited Chichester, Arundel, Worthing, Brighton, and London. Heard of deaths of [George] Shaw and Dr [John] Davie, Master of S[i]dney Sussex College, Cambridge. [Thomas] Martyn evidentally still intellectually active, having edited Dr Steven's "Treatise on Human Happiness".

Just received "Flora Glottiana" and one of [George] Don's "Fasciculi of Dried Plants" for Smith. [William Elford] Leach has been recommended by [Dawson] Turner and [William Jackson] Hooker to get certificates signed by Linnean Society members in support of his candidacy at the British Museum, will add his name if this happens.

Transcribes extract from letter by [John Russell, 6th] Duke of Bedford, in which he recommends Smith take up continuation of "Flora Rustica", now that interest in agriculture as a science is well established; his own thoughts on subject.

Unable to make out the flowers on Sir Thomas Gage's specimen of 'Trifolium squarrosum', will hope for an earlier gathered specimen next year.