58 MR. ROUS'S LETTER AND 



which is due to the zeal you have shown in a good cause, and to 

 the information you possess. For myself, I most earnestly 

 hope that you will consent to assist the Society as far as you 

 can in accordance with the necessary duty of the Committee. 



Pray do not take it ill if I remind you that an individual, 

 however talented, can do no good alone ; but only through the 

 confidence which others repose in him. If the farmers near 

 North Walsham had not proved your experiments, all your 

 writings would have been in vain. If the landowners had not 

 backed your proposal for a Flax Society, you might have 

 talked for everlasting to empty benches. What could Caesar 

 have done without troops, or what could the Duke of Welling- 

 ton have done without the support of the Government ? And 

 although the troops would have done less without their 

 generals, the generals would have done nothing without their 

 troops. 



You are now in this position. If you act in unison with the 

 wishes of the whole Committee, you can do a vast deal of good 

 to the country, and you will have a further claim on public 

 gratitude ; if you withdraw your services, you will obstruct 

 for a time the progress of the Society, and diminish the obliga- 

 tions we owe to you. 



I have written thus candidly, both from a regard to your- 

 self, and from a deep interest I feel in the welfare of the 



Society. 



I remain, yours truly, 



John Warnes, Jun., Esq. W. Rous. 



DEAR SIR, March 10. 



Allow me to thank you for your friendly, cautionary, 

 and very interesting letter ; and also to beg that you will 

 accept my apology for troubling you with an answer, as 

 I shall so soon, I hope, have the pleasure of meeting you at 

 Norwich. 



In withdrawing from the Committee of the Norfolk Flax 

 Society, nothing was further from my intention, as I repeatedly 

 avowed, than to withhold my assistance, or the slightest par- 

 ticle of information that I possessed, from the Society. Nor 

 had I any desire whatever to control the funds of the Society 



