559 
in the spring, and talk over all our pleasurable con- 
versations ; and a greater to see you here. 
Yours, 
8. G. 
J. E. Smith to Thomas Platt, Esq. 
Dear Sir, Jan. 1, 1807. 
In reply to your favour of Dec. 29, it is impossi- 
ble not to see the justice and candour of what you 
say on the subject of my engagement with you; and 
I feel and acknowledge that you have shown confi- 
dence in me, and that our dealings together have 
been more like old friends than persons hitherto 
unknown to each other. But I wish you and all 
the world to know that the protracted publication 
of the work (except what arose from my being al- 
most blind for some months, and therefore unable 
‘to work at it) has been owing to the confused na- 
ture of the state in which our deceased friend left 
the materials, and which no one could have sus- 
pected beforehand. For instance, there being no 
names to either specimens or drawings, except a 
few ; which has occasioned me infinite trouble, and 
(if I may say so) required eminent botanical know- 
ledge in order to combine the materials together. 
This you will readily perceive would not have been 
the case if the same names which are in Dr. Sib- 
thorp’s journals and catalogues, my only guides to 
the places of growth, had been written on either 
specimens or drawings; because then a person of 
