To George Murray

Sir,¹

The liberty I now take would be an unwarranted one were the causes which prompt me to take it of an unimportant nature. I wrote to you on the 24th,² requesting the favour of an interview and laying before you at the same time copies of testimonials³ which I trust have divested your mind of doubts which might naturally be attached to the statement of a stranger unsupported by such testimony. I perchance have presumed too far in asking this favour. I should not have done so were not the interests of friends who are dear to me involved in a fate similar to my own, and did I not imagine that my exertions would be conducive towards rescuing them as well as myself from the embarrassment consequent on our dismissal from such a situation as we held on the Ordnance Survey. I, as one of those who signed the letter to you on the 9th,⁴ have been informed that if we wait till December we shall be made acquainted with your opinion of the document. The favour for which I prayed may be denied me: still the vindicating of my conduct is no less my bounden duty and compels me, probably for the last time, to crave your kind attention to a few facts which, owing to misadventure or other causes, may not have been submitted for your consideration. You are already acquainted with my character from my first connexion with the Survey to the latest hour of that connexion, you have this confirmed by gentlemen of the highest respectability who have known me from my infancy. I am not the only one of those lately dismissed⁵ who can produce such creditable testimony: there are other men similarly circumstanced whose moral characters would not suffer by a comparison with that of any man in existence. I speak strongly, Sir, but not more strongly than is merited, and with respect to our qualifications I can only say that I feel assured we would be found upon trial equal if not superior to the same number selected from any Division of the Survey. Before my departure from Preston, I, with others, forwarded you three small specimens.⁶ I beg of you to recollect that these were executed under very unfavourable auspices, they were done in a great hurry, with unsettled minds and by candle light. Necessity compelled us to lay these very imperfect scraps before you. They would, however, be a very inaccurate test of the ability of those who drew them – I would repeat, Sir, that upon a fair trial we will not be found inferior to the same number selected from any Division on the Survey.

RI MS JT/1/TYP/10/3905

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