Holograph letter, signed, from John Wilkes to [Jean Baptiste Antoine Suard], December 17, 1767

File — Folder: 2

Scope and Contents

See more See less

Was eight days only in England. Cannot tell you why I am at the Hague. Your letter to Mr. Becket taken care of by my brother. I did not see Pankoucke [Suard's brother-in-law, Charles Joseph Pankoucke, 1736-1798]. Do you wish any heretical pamphlets? Have seen the Stadtholder and his wife at the French play. Address me "Au Maréchal du Turenne à la Haye." Details of past and future journeys. Shall I send you Voltaire's Essai historique et critique sure les dissentions des eglises de Pologne? Miss Wilkes [his daughter, named Mary but called Polly, born 1750] is in London but will join me. Respects to Mme Suard, Abbé Arnaud, Monsieur Saurin, Legier. Mentions Monsieur d'Holbach. Postcript comment that these republicans surfeit me with nauseous compliments. Incipit: I was so short a time in England...

Dates

Creation: December 17, 1767

Full Extent

1 item : 1 leaf, paper, folded into 2 pages; pages 1 and 3 written on. ; 4 x 8 cm

Additional Description

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from bookseller Henry Bristow, of Ringwood, Hampshire, England, catalog 276:177, in 1982.

General

Letter is signed John Wilkes; writing verified in Morrison's catalogue. Written while Wilkes was exiled, avoiding arrest for seditious libel, from December 1763-February 1768. No salutation but the letter mentions "but indeed, dear Mr Suard." Suard was a man-of-letters and brother-in-law of Panckoucke. He had an interest in English scholars such as Hume, Gibbon, Walpole, Robertson. The King at first refused to confirm his nomination to the Academie française because he was thought to move in encyclopediste circles; during the Revolution he defended the monarchy and was proscribed (Michaud).

An annotation, apparently by Suard taking up Wilkes' offer to send him books, reads, "Demander le ler vol. de la Geogr. de Busching a la Haye chez P. Gosse." Publications mentioned must be vol. 1 of Anton Friedrich Büsching's Magazin für die neue Historie und Geographie. Hamburg: F.C. Ritter, 1767-1793. Pieter Gosse was a printer at Hague.