—You write as if it were easy for me to go into such questions on paper. I have not strength for it, nor time.

It is ticklish work—altering published terms of Purchase (which are a proffered contract)—which should only be entered on with the utmost caution and circumspection. And I pity Hutt if he is to be addressed officially in writing with questions on these subjects, every time some new man has a doubt or objection. You should be quite as familiar with the bearing of every article in the terms, as Hutt himself, for you helped to draw them besides having made them a study.

But at all events, supposing, as is far from improbable, that there is a call for your change, the question should be discussed first in friendly confidence; not by official correspondence. The relations between you and the Association are so intimate, and you are separated by so short a geographical space, that formal written communications on such a point have a very unfriendly look.

I cannot write, but will talk on the subject whenever you please.

Parker writes that as he could not find you yesterday it will not be possible to do the first number of the Canterbury Papers well by Saturday next. Perhaps it may be as well (though the delay is trying) to fall in with his view of beginning on the 1st February. I should not object, if you had a double number for the first, and real pains were taken to insure to would-be purchasers a facility of buying it.