NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 271. 



designe in mentioning this, save that if you find 

 it an error it may be corrected in the next edition. 

 I shall be obliged to you for the like favour, if 

 you please to give yourselfe the trouble to read 

 my book, w'^'' was seen by no man but myself till 

 it past y" press, y"'fore I cannot think it without 

 oversights. I am, 



Sir, yo'' m'' hu. serv*, 



Jno. Cart. 

 To John Locke, Esq. 



This letter, and the accompanying book, did 

 not reach Locke until the 11th of the following 

 April. How the delay arose does not appear, 

 Locke immediately replied as follows : 



Gates, 12 Apr., '96. 

 Worthy S% 



Y' obleigeing letter of Jan. 11, with the most ac- 

 ceptable present of y"" booke w*^*" accompanied it, 

 came not to my hands till late last night. The lin- 

 gering of it soe long by the way has upon many ac- 

 counts been a misfortune to me. It has deprived me 

 of the pleasure and instructions I might have had 

 from the perusall of y"^ Essay. It has made me loose 

 the oportunity of correcting a great fault, w*^*" having 

 passed the presse in the first edition of my answer 

 to Mr. Lowndes, I wish y' timely and very kinde 

 admonition had come early enough to have made 

 me set right in the second. But most of all I am 

 troubld, that it has soe long delayd my thanks to 

 one, who by his undeserved civility has soe just a 

 right to them. And I might reasonably a[)pre- 

 hend what thoughts of me soe hmg a silence might 

 raise in y", did I not perswade myself that the 

 good opinion y" are pleased to exj)resse of me in 

 y' letter, would not let y" impute my silence to 

 the worst of causes, ill breeding and ingratitude, 

 till y" were satisfied that the slowness of my ac- 

 knowledgm* was owing to noe thing but pure 

 neglect in me. This stop soe unluckily put to the 

 beginning of my acquaintance with y" I hope y" 

 will perniitt me to repaire by my faster growth in 

 it. Thuike not this a complem' in returne to y"^ 

 civility, w*^** has made the overture. This request 

 has more weighty motives than what I have re- 

 ceived from y", though I acknowledge y' book and 

 y' letter have very much obleiged me. A worthy 

 rational man and a disiiiteressed lover of his 

 country is soe valuable a thing, y* I thinke I may 

 be allowed to be very ambitious of such acquaint- 

 ance wherever I can meet with it. Give me leave 

 then, now y* y" have opened the way to it, to own 

 an impatience to be admitted into the freedom of 

 familiarity and communicaticm. For though I 

 have not yet the happynesse to know y' face, yet 

 I am not wholy a stranger to y'' character. 



I ."hall say nothing now of y"^ booke : the few 

 hours I have had it, have permitted me barely to 

 cast my eye in hast on the three or fower first 

 pages. I shall imploy the first leisure I have to 



read it over with attention, and to shew that I 

 think my self already past the terms of complem' 

 with y" I shall very frankly doe what in the close 

 of y' letter y" desire of me; and whereof y" have 

 set me so friendly an example in the error y" have 

 shew*^ me in mine. 



I am, worthy S"", 



Y'' most humble and most 

 obleiged servant, 



John Locke. 

 KeC^ Aprill IS'""! ,„^ 

 Answ. y« IT'" J ^"' 



Gary answered this letter on the 17th April, 

 immediately after its receipt. A copy of his 

 answer is preserved in the MS. whence the other 

 letters are derived : — Additional MS. Brit. Mus. 

 5,540. In the course of Gary's reply, he remarked, 

 " The freedome I took in laying before you the 

 Printer's Errors in yo'' answer to Mr. Lowndes you 

 are pleased to excuse, and to take it with the same 

 candor I intended it." On the 2nd May Locke 

 returned the following excellent reply : 



Gates, 2 May, '96. 

 Worthy S% 



I have read over your Essay of Trade y" did me 

 the favour to send me, and have found the satis- 

 faction I expected. It answers the character I 

 had of y", and is the best discourse I ever read on 

 that subject, not only for the clearnesse of all 

 that y" deliver and the undoubted evidence of 

 most of it, but for a reason that weighs with me 

 more than both these, and that is, that sincere 

 aime at the publick good and that disinteres.sed 

 reasoning that appears to me in all y"^ proposals ; 

 a thing that I have not been able to finde in those 

 authors on the same argument w'^'' I have looked 

 into. This makes me dare to owne to y" that 

 there are some few things in it wherein my opinion 

 differs from y", but yet I like not y"^ booke one jot 

 the worse, since I can promise myselfe from a man 

 of y"" ingenuity, and one who covers not by-interest 

 of his owne under the pretence of serving the 

 publick, that when I have the oportunity to 

 debate them with y", either I shall be brought to 

 righter thoughts by y'' stronger reason, or else 

 that y" will not reject anything I shall offer be- 

 cause y" have been of an other minde. In all 

 debates with any one, all that I desire is, that 

 between us the truth may be found, but whether 

 I brought it thither, or carry it away, instead of an 

 error that tooke its place before, I am little con- 

 cerned ; only in the latter case I am sure I am the 

 greater gainer. 



Gne thing I have to complain of y' booke, but 

 it is the complaint of a greedy man, and that is, 

 that it is too little ; but a second edition will give 

 y" an oportunity to enlarge it, and I hope you will 

 doe soe. He y* could say soe much can say a 

 great deale more if he will, and y" doe as good as 



