Correspondence of Lient.-Col. J. L. Philips. 41 



I write to you little about the Politics of this Country. It may be comprized 

 in a few words ; with respect to our foreign relations, we have no means of 

 engaging in war or inflicting injury on those who injure us. Unless by an 

 Embargo, which is so much evaded, that you hardly feel it. Indeed, the People 

 here are really averse to a quarrel with Great Britain ; if we can maintain peace 

 we are determined to do so, & to overlook small injuries. But it will not be 

 policy to force us into self-defence. Everything here is in a way of improvement 

 full as rapid as at any period in England, considering the great disparity of 

 resources in the two Countries. At present, at the Intervals of my professional 

 Avocations, I attend to literary pursuits as formerly. I am studying Mineralogy 

 furiously. I dream of Stones every night from the Actinolite to the Zeolyte and 

 the Zoisyte all through the Alphabet. Nothing would delight my eyes more 

 than one or two hundred weight of minerals and fossils. If I knew how to 

 smuggle them, I would most gladly make a remittance in the best Havannah 

 Segars ; but in the midst of all your pursuits, I fancy you have left out 

 Mineralogy. 



If your good father be alive, tell him I think with kind and respectful 

 feelings of our Conversations and his correcting my greek quotations. Be 

 assured that at no day have my former friends been unrecollected with grateful 

 pleasure. If you can communicate any scientifical or cognoscentical Information 

 you will do me service. In this Country my old friend Tom Kershaw's classi- 

 fication is not quite applicable. We are not divided into the Cognoscenti the 

 Cognoscentini and the Ignoranti, we humbly submit to rank ourselves under 

 the two latter Denominations. You will however always oblige me by ranging 

 me as Amateur in any pursuit that relates to knowledge of any kind. Say to 

 my friends, I do not forget them, altho' I seem to be forgotten. Adieu 



I remain yr friend 



THOMAS COOPER. 



Any parcel sent to me to the care of Mr. John Vaughan Philadelphia, 

 will reach me. 



We get a glimpse of Philips as a boy from the following 

 letters, as well as additional testimony to his activity on 

 behalf of the Manchester Infirmary. The writer was Captain 

 Joseph Budworth, who was born in Manchester in 1759, ar, d 

 was, therefore, about two years older than Philips, his father 

 being the landlord of the Palace Inn. He was educated 

 at the Manchester Grammar School, and served as a 

 lieutenant in the 72nd, or Royal Manchester Volunteers, 

 during the siege of Gibraltar. In the introduction to 

 a poem composed in September, 1782, during the siege, 

 and published in quarto in 1795, he tells us that, though 

 only twenty-one at that time, he was the oldest man in his 



