Letter – John Erasmus Blackett to Thomas Blackett – 27 Nov 1786

Sir Thos. Blackett  Bart.                                              Newcastle    Novemr.  27th. 1786

Bretton - Yorkshire



Dear Sir       I am favoured with your letters of the 20th & 23rd inst. with your Receipt for a Bill of £2000.  the next Month I shall send you a Bill for the like value.   I am happy to have so good an account of your health.  I observe that you are entering into the Cloth Manufactory, & I wish it may answer as well as the Lead Trade; but that I doubt.  I am still in treaty with Mr Dew about the Exchange of Thos. Hepples Life & am in hopes that he will accept the Sum Offer’d & which he once agreed to; from the last Account I had of Hepple he is better & I think that the Bishop will soon come into your terms.  I do not want Jonathan Depledge’s Register, but a Certificate from the Minister & Church wardens, that he is living & in good health.  The Treaty of Commerce with France will be of no further Advantage to the Lead Trade to that Kingdom. I imagine that it may to the Cloth Trade.  I have Ordered the Straw Bonnets from Mr Gibson.  Your Lead Stewards have been with me this Afternoon, & tomorrow I shall pay them about £2900 for Subsistence for the Workmen, & for some Wood payments they inform me that the Mines are much in the same state they were, when they were last down; the Snow is so deep the could not Cross the Fells, & they had a difficulty in getting down the <Country> road.  In Case the Hermitage is lett, I have a promise of it but as I expect Mr & Mrs Head over the next Summer they will be the best Judges as to purchasing the Estate they were very well when I last heard from them.                                             I am etc    J. E. Blackett