[November 1776]

Sr,

By the first conveyance that offers itself you will receive a thick volume which very probably you will never read.
It is entitled, Theory of Punishment. It is part of a work to which if ever it should be compleated I intend to give some such title as Principles of Legal Policy; the object of it is to trace out a new model for the Laws: of my own country you may imagine, in the first place: but keeping those of other countries all along in view. To ascertain what the Laws ought to be, in form and tenor as well as in matter: and that elsewhere as well as here. All that I shall say to recommend it to you is that I have taken counsel of you much oftener than of our own Ld. Coke and Hale and Blackstone. The repose of Grotius and Puffendorf and Barbeyrac and Burlamaqui I would never wish to see disturbed. I have built solely on the foundation of utility, laid as it is by Helvetius. Becarria has been lucerna pedibus, or if you please manibus, meis. Perhaps what I have done may be found but cobweb-work. Such as it is however it is spun out of my own brain. As such I send it you. It is neither borrow'd nor pilfer'd. I have spent upon it in the whole already about 7 years. I mean to bestow upon it the rest of my days, which at present are somewhat more than a third of your's.

One of the rewards I have been proposing to myself has been your good opinion. Perhaps I am come too soon to attain it: perhaps too late. I have seen with regret the following billet: said to have been sent to an intruder perhaps not more impertinent, than myself, Octoginta due annos octoginta due morbes, veniam peto si non sum visendus sed obliviscendus. My labours have been so tedius that before they are come to an end my best rewards may I fear be lost. Helvetius is gone — years ago my eyes paid a tribute to his memory: and you and D'Alembert are leaving us.

If you should ever find any thing to say to me I need scarce tell you that it will be acceptable. Anything directed to Elmsly's the Booksellers (successor to Vaillant) will reach me. I am a Lawyer by profession; and might have been so by practise. My name is precisely as well known to you as that of the nearest inhabitant of Siberia. It is . . . .