200 LIFE AND CORRESPONDEXCE OF THE [17S6 



Philadelphia who may be some time hence intrusted with the sale of 

 copies, it will occur to you that neither he nor any other person from 

 the neighboring States can have any copies at present. The proportion 

 for each State must be sent, agreeably to our plan, to some one or more 

 of the clergy in each State, who are to be responsible for the money 

 arising from the copies, as well as an equal distribution of the books in 

 the proportions agreed upon in their several Conventions. In Mary- 

 land we have fixed on three copies out of every five for the Western 

 Shore; and two copies for the Eastern, the former to Dr. West's care, 

 the latter to mine. And you will yet have the trouble to take receipts 

 for the books of the post or stage carriers, or skippers, etc., obliging 

 themselves to deliver parcels or boxes as directed. The expense of 

 package, and carriage, etc., to be paid out of the profits of the sale, to 

 make the price equal in all places, for Philadelphia should have no 

 superior advantage in the price, by lying near the press. The book 

 should be $1 to a purchaser in Philadelphia as well as in Charlestown, 

 Carolina; and the stages, where they go by stage, will not take them 

 without the pay advanced, though if they could be got to take them 

 and be paid on the delivery at New York, Baltimore, Alexandria, etc., 

 giving their receipt to you, it would perhaps insure their care of the 

 parcels the better, not to have the money till the service was done. 

 Your local situation will still throw all this care and trouble upon you, 

 but I know you will not decline it, any more than you have heretofore 

 in the prosecution of this work. The bookbinder should get all the 

 help he can. I hope Mr. Marshal,* of Boston, has a few complete 

 copies including the preface, calendar, etc. If he had them not in a 

 bound book they should be sent in sheets, that they may have the 

 whole before them, and especially the preface giving them what I hope 

 will be a satisfactory account of the reasons, and expediency, etc., of 

 all the proposed alterations. 



Of the first five hundred copies for Maryland, let Mr. West have 

 three hundred, which may go twice, viz. : one hundred and fifty in a 

 box not to risk all at once, and to make it more convenient, for the 

 binder. I should be glad of about twenty copies this week by our 

 post, and if I cannot agree with him for a reasonable price for the re- 

 mainder, I will order them by water to Duck Creek, and send for them 

 from thence. 



I am affectionately yours, 



Wm. Smith, 



* Doubtless a clerical error for "Parker," the Rector of Trinity Church, Boston. 

 The Rev. John R. Marshall, A. M., of Connecticut, attended the primary meeting in 

 New York in 1784, but his name is not found in connection with any subsequent 

 proceedings. 



