Rev. A. Brandram No. 45
Veracruz 18th of June 1830
My Dear Friend
On my arrival here on the 13th instant I learned that the packet sailed on the forenoon of the same day, and was happy to learn that my letter to you from Jalapa had been duly received and forwarded. I could have reached this city in time to sail by the packet by hurrying down from Jalapa, but it was not my intention to go by it on account of the great expense, the passage from Veracruz to Falmouth being nothing less than one hundred pounds sterling. I can go home cheaper by the United States. By that way therefore I intend to go, and this indeed is now become the most common way of passing from this country to England.
No vessel has left this port for that quarter since I arrived here, but one sails tomorrow for New Orleans. By information I have gained from those who are well acquainted with the inland and sea passages or routes to New York from this, I learned that the expense and time required in the two ways is very nearly the same, with a slight difference perhaps in favour of the river course. This being the case, I leave this for New Orleans tomorrow in the vessel referred to, and from New Orleans I shall proceed up the river Mississippi and Ohio, and the thence onward to New York, where it is I intend to embark for England.
I have never been in the United States, and there are so many attractions there of Christian friends and Christian objects that I intend to trespass on your goodness by spending a month there more than the time absolutely necessary for passing through that country as a route for England. I beg the forgiveness and indulgence of the Committee for so doing, and shall gladly make all necessary deductions from my salary from the time I take up in this private way.
I send you the account current of your agency in this country, which I had not time to make up and copy before leaving the city of Mexico, but which a few days leisure I have enjoyed here have enabled me to attend to. You will find that your sales are as follows, since the making up of the last account about a year ago: namely, 206 Bibles; 654 New Testaments; 252 Four Books; and 175 Luke and Acts, in all 1287 volumes. To which may be safely added 313 volumes more for what has been sold in Oajaca, Puebla and Zacatecas, but which accounts it has been impossible for me to close before leaving. The total number of volumes there therefore which have been circulated during the past year is sixteen hundred, and all of these have been sold except 30 copies of Luke and Acts given for distribution in one of the prisons in the city of Mexico, where they were most gladly received.
I have sent you, as noticed in a former letter, £200 pounds through Mr. William Jones, Paternoster Row, and the balance remaining in your favour will be settled on my arrival in London.
I remain, My Dear Friend,
Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
P.S. I have drawn today on Mr. Thornton for £50 in favour of our R.P.Staples & Co. which bill I beg may be duly honoured and the amount placed to my private account.