Trinity College - WW is frustrated that the manuscripts to RJ's book has not yet come: 'I do expect that I shall be in possession of your material by that time [a meeting of the syndics in a fortnight]'. The members of the syndicate need the manuscript for two weeks 'to give their opinion of it'. The friends of Pryme [George Pryme] 'are going to propose that the university should make him Professor of the science [Political Economy]. I do not think it will do the science any good for he is, as a lecturer, dull and unpopular and will never be otherwise'. It has been settled that the Professorship ends with the holder.
Trinity College - WW 'cannot but be amused to imagine what an awful person I must be when you dare scarcely trust me with your fears and hesitation about your printing'. WW wants to get his mineralogical system printed: 'While you work for years in the elaboration of slowly growing ideas, I take the first buds of thought and...without trying what patience and labour might do in ripening and perfecting them'. Pryme [George Pryme] has been elected Professor of Political Economy today.
RJ accepts WW's offer to be a bystander and gives up all idea of writing anything himself [responding to John McCulloch's adverse review of RJ's book - 'Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation By the Rev. Richard Jones', Edinburgh Review, 1831]. However, RJ does think WW should see what he has written and he will send him a copy. He will also 'send back you Pryme's [George Pryme] letter. The professor's chemical illustration is so ingenious that it is almost a pity it is inapplicable - but though neither he nor McCulloch can comprehend it, yet the fact is (as you will see) that I have in tracing farmers rents made no such confusion as that which they complain of and I have asked pure rents and rejected returns to landlords improvements with a strictness of abstract analysis which ought to please them - but which has only puzzled them - as to the metayers - do turn to page 73 and 74 where I have stated nearly what Pryme states himself, as to the mixture of funds - I promised more. I am afraid his memory is not as good as might be wished for'. RJ is sorry WW is to be on the Council of the Royal Society. Does WW know that Charles Babbage is 'concocting some thunder to crush Daniel who preached against his Causes of Decline ['Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on some of its Causes', 1830] in his inaugural lecture at King's College - B.'s murder of Sabine [Edward Sabine] has made him blood thirsty and adventurous - he will commit more slaughter very likely - but when a man runs amuck he always gets slain at last - this warlike project of his is a secret mind, pray do not let it escape or I shall have a taste of the create'. RJ is annoyed with WW over his decision to be on the Council of the Royal Society because 'I find to my infinite vexation that party feeling is still so high in turn that you will lose some of the good will of people not otherwise than estimable'. RJ's reviewer in the Quarterly Review 'is a man of fortune - a ministerialist - rather an ultra liberal and apparently so ashamed of writing in the Tory Journal that he makes a point of concealment which will not last long I dare say - even what I tell you however is to be a great secret' ['Review of An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation By Rev. Richard Jones, Quarterly Review, 1831].
Letters from Prof. G. Pryme, the Bishop of Durham, the Dean of St Patrick's, Sir Thomas Fremantle, William Webb, Lord Charles Hervey, Dr Locock, the Bishop of Ely, Mr Fell, Lord Feilding, Mr Russell, the Bishop of Madras, Lord Ernest Bruce, Archdeacon Hodson, Sir John H. Lowther, Lord Mandeville, J. G. Shaw Lefevre, Rev. H. V. Elliott, Mr Buston, and Eliot Yorke.
Trinity College WW thinks RJ is right in resolving to explain himself further: 'If you want to see how it may be needed read the enclosed letter of Pryme [George Pryme] which I have just got and which I treacherously communicate to you the object of his criticisms. You will perceive how deeply the notion is burnt into these people that Ricardo's theory is good because he analyses the circumstances. The young Londoners have got the same fancy - most of the rest of Pryme's critique is stupid enough'. WW is to be one of the council of the Royal Society: 'My main reason for not refusing this is my dislike to be coupled with the Babbagian sect of spewers or railers; for in truth I do not see much chance of good coming of it'. Concerning Ricardo's analysis of rent, 'cannot it be shewn that it impossible to discriminate between the payment for the original powers of the soil, and for improvements?'