Stroud
Saturday, Jan. 25. 1817
My dear Sir,
	Yours I received yesterday, but not sufficiently early to answer by return of post. As this is not Post Day, you cannot receive this till Monday. I have sent to Glocester respecting the Journals and cannot account for the delay. lest you should be again disappointed, I have sent a Copy by this day’s Post, the Copy, which I purposed to save for myself.
	I have re-examined the Registers and they are all for the Year 1815; as an additional proof, they are twelves and not octaves. I shall not return them yet, for I may dispose of them for Cash, which can be carried to our account as Registers sold. I will thank you to send six Copies for 1816, and enclose in the Parcel two Copies of “the Proceedings of the Society containing 15 Sermons & Reports, 4 vols. 8vo price 24s in boards.” —for which i shall pay Cash and carry the amount as intended respecting the registers. One set is for “the Cottages Book Club”, and I am happy to say the funds will well afford it.
	I have enclosed a card as circulated by the London Missionary Society— Shall we have some struck off, or will you undertake for us; for you [f] can have them much cheaper from the London Printers? I have found it more convenient to ask a Young Lady to take a card, and endeavour to fill it up, than to solicit her to become a Collector, for her fears of not obtaining credit to herself under the formidable name of a Collector will cause her to refuse, when she will not refuse a card and say “I will try”. An old Turn-pike woman at Swansea took a Card for the London Missionary Society and asked the Ladies as they passed to put their names to her cards to give their penny per week; she soon sent for another card, and soon afterwards for a third. She has proved a very industrious Collector; but had she been solicited in the first place to be a Collector, the name of a Collector would have been too formidable to have ensured her concurrence.
	We have been so much pleased with the rev. Mr Marsden’s Account of New Zealand, that we long to have it in a separate tract. I was half inclined to draw up the life of Duaterra, and embody the whole of Mr Marsden’s Narration; but when I made research in the Register, I could not find, when his first acquaintance commenced with Mr M. If in your next letter to that Gentleman, you were to suggest the idea of his drawing up “Memoirs of Duaterra, Sovereign Chief of Tippoona, New Zealand”— in the course of three years, we might have a very interesting Narrative, [f] which, I am persuaded, would clear that Gentleman some hundreds: if he could obtain sufficient matter for a small octave; which might be done by introducing some account of that Country.
	Be so kind as to let me have your decision respecting the cards as early as you can; for Mr Neville was about to engage with our Stroud Printer to strike off some for Painswick, but I suggested the plan of having them struck off in Town, for all the Country, which I believe I mentioned to you when at Glocester, as less expensive. The same may serve for any other Association.
	With sincere regards to Mr Bickersteth, believe me,
Dear Sir
Yours affectionately
John Williams