MEMOIR OF DRURY. 



pomp and distinctions." The business, however, m 

 \Vood Street enabled him to realise about 6000, 

 and likewise to keep a country-house at Enfield, in 

 Middlesex, at which his family for the most part 

 resided. 



It was in February, 1771> that he purchased 

 the stock in trade and good will of the business of 

 Mr. Nathaniel Jeffreys, gold and silver smith and 

 cutler, at No. 32 Strand, London, for the sum of 

 11,500, paying him partly in cash, and the ba- 

 lance by instalments at stated periods. The business 

 to which he had been brought up, he himself states, 

 was that of a working silversmith, and the change 

 to a goldsmith, he adds, was so considerable, that it 

 was necessary for him to devote the whole of his 

 time to it in order to become acquainted with the 

 details of management. He appears to have con- 

 ducted the business for several years with great 

 success, realising an income of nearly 2000 per 

 annum. He made great efforts to extend his mer- 

 cantile transactions, and formed extensive contracts 

 for supplying several regiments with swords and 

 other military accoutrements. Still, however, he 

 had various difficulties to encounter, and a perusal 

 of his letters about this period makes us aware 

 that the business had not equalled his expectations, 

 and the obligations he had contracted to obtain it 

 threatened ultimately to become oppressive. It was 

 in all probability this conviction that led him to 

 enter the more readily into a speculation which pro- 

 mised at first to be highly advantageous, but which 



