TALBOT654

Sackville Street ¹
July 3^d

My Dear Henry

The onus probandi ² lies with you, to make out how Buonaparte ³ is worse than Richard 3^{d 4} or Louis 11^{th 5} or many others. I am afraid your political mind is corrupted by reading that vile Courier, ⁶ the constant dropping of a daily Paper will wear away the hardest of stoutest Whiggism. Your Coat shall go to you as soon as its finished. Tom Strangways's ⁷ wound turns out not to be so bad as, in the first confusion, it was represented. M^r F. ⁸ is gone to Eden Farm with Lord Auckland. ⁹ The National Monument ¹⁰ should I think be something like the Arch of Constantine. ¹¹ It is impossible any body can coolly think Buonaparte a Coward, they might as well as well say it was mere matter of opinion whether or no Sir Isaac Newton ¹² was a silly man. s

Facts are stubborn things. I hear so much in praise of Lord Ashley ¹³ - do you like him? I mean to go to the Speeches

W. H. F. Talbot Esq^r
D^r Butler's ¹⁴
Harrow