Volume 72: Macarthur family correspondence relating to wine, 1846-1900: No. 189
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[Page 189]
Bordeaux 21st April
My Dear Sir,
I received on 16th Inst. your obliging letter of the 12th Aug return you my thanks for your [Ar aucaria?] Charles Barton is now here, but his brother Berham who is a partner in the house, has received your note & taken measures to forward by the steamer, this valued foreigner.
It is gratifying to me to learn that you have got the box samples of Claret. We should like that it might be available; but from the difficulties we meet with in shipping to private parties [indecipherable] from the hostility of wine merchants; [indecipherable] from the carelessness of private parties; who are unwilling when not totally ignorant of trouble to be taken, in order to avoid. breakage & pilfering not only at the Customs, but also in their own household = we must forego the advantage.
The fact is it is a question of responsibility, when the wine is in town, or on the quays, or in the Customs house nobody will own the wine and some very precious claret for want of care have been lost under such circumstances. If you held to any party's having a direct supply from us, which is sometimes the case it might be managed in this way, give us the name of the wine merchant with whom he deals and we could send him the wine to be cared for & delivered the increase will be about 5 prCt for commission on our price. It will save much more in the end; though I must put you up to what recently [occurred?] in a London wine house did in a similar case, in which some Yquem [indecipherable] 6d pr bottle was concerned. When delivered a bottle of the Yquem was missing & after long & patient investigation it turned out, the Yquem lost had been abstracted in the London wine merchants