Archibald MacLeesing to His Publisher

Miss Porden

Dear Sir,

I have read as you recommended to me the most approved works recently published on the present state of France, and think myself in consequence completely qualified to write the tour you have proposed to me. I think of adopting the epistolatory as admitting a greater variety of embellishment. A Lady will be of course the most interesting author and I shall endeavour to intersperse as much of sentiment and adventure as to render the work generally amusing. That you may be able to judge in some degree of my powers I enclose the sketch of Letter 1, in which I was sorry to be unable to introduce either a shipwreck or a highway robbery as you had wished. When I have made farther progress and advance of money on every finished sheet will most effectually spur the industry of

your most obedient

Archibald MacLeesing