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year from England! When will they have a person of my peculiar talents & acquirements again! Reflexions of this kind have induced me to write to the King. - I request of you my Dear Sir Joseph, if after having read the letter, you find no impropriety in the step, to transmit it to his Majesty. I give you the trouble of sealing and enclosing & directing it. if anything should be done, pray send me immediate notice both to Canton & to Calcutta. If I get into China, I shall not stay long there, very very little time indeed, unless I find great opportunities for to see the face of the country & amuse myself is not my object. if I get to Canton & sail for England, nothing, I believe, could ever induce me to go out again. I don't with [wish] for any place or appointment in an Embassy. On the contrary, my Quaker principles render me repugnant to that. The good will of the Embassador is all I want, at least all I ask. The Embassador ought to be a personable portly gentle-motioned man. But I'm building castles in the air! How can I explain the great reason why an Embassy ought to be sent out now? How can I say, "Gentlemen; if you wait 500 years you won't have so clever a man again in the situation I am actually in!?" I leave it to you, Sir Joseph, entirely, either to quash it or promote it. What you judge best I shall be satisfied - believe me to be Yours faithfully
Thomas Manning
August 27th
1811.