1825 entire DEMERARA - ELGIN, GREENOCK ship Letter Chas Johnson To James Ritchie

References plans to extend National Road (route 40) in USA.

Demerara, 25 March

1825

James Ritchie

My Dear Sir

Your favors of the 15 Nov have been duly received. I could hardly expect any allusion to the subject you allude to. Your last by Duncan Grant gave me reason to expect another soon after, in answer to my letter of 5 October 1823 — yet unanswered.

Mr Pearson communicated to me your similar proposal to him — he knew my opinion of it both on his and in my own name.

I have not mistaken your letter. I conceived your meaning to have been what you now stated. I beg leave, in the utmost and most unqualified terms, to reject it for the reasons that I explained in my unanswered letter of 5 Oct, and for another substantial reason — that I have not got the statements I required.

I requested, for my information, that you hand me as early as possible a full statement of the monies you received from America and from the adjudication laid in Forres.

Of the property in America I have perhaps a good enough idea — that is to say that it is not worth one half farthing, if a contemplated change in the Great United States Road has taken place. It was before Congress when I was there, and if your letter stating the heavy arrears convinces me that this has taken place —

If anything is wanted from me, it will be after you have furnished me with every [statement], and after giving me the [information] I required.

I wrote a friend of mine on the subject — a lawyer in Petersburg — but I was sorry, some months ago, to hear of his death.

When my duty shall require it to be so —

With my dutiful respects to my client

I am always

My Dear Sir

Yours most sincerely

Chas Johnson