Dear Henry
I saw the other day at the Foreign Office the first application of Photography to public business, in the shape of calotype copies, <3> of many pages, of the whole Chinese Treaty <4> taken off with the greatest success & precision. Whenever you come to England go to the F.O. & ask Mellish <5> to show it you, & if you can suggest any improvement you will be, still more, a public benefactor.
I had a letter from Tenore <6> lately in which he says that the Neapolitan experimentalists do not succeed at all in Fotografia –
Have you received any letters from him about it? I wish you would write & enlighten him, for he evidently is in the dark.
I remain here about a fortnight longer before returning to Frankfort I am surrounded by Narcissus Hyacinths &c from Abbotsbury <7> Did Caroline <8> get my letter, when does she return?
Yr aff
W F S
Notes:
1. 31 Burlington Street, London home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
2. 1843. [See Doc. No: 04746].
3. Made by Henry Collen. For WHFT’s reaction to this, see Doc. No: 04917.
4. The Treaty of Nanking (29 August 1842) which ended the Opium War (1839–1842) between Britain and China and opened certain Chinese ports to foreign trade. See Larry J. Schaaf, ‘Henry Collen and the Treaty of Nanking’ History of Photography, v.6 no.4, April-June 1983, pp. 163–165.
5. Richard Charles Mellish (d. 1865), a Senior Clerk in the Foreign Office from 1841 until his retirement on 31 December 1854.
6. Michel Tenore (1780–1861), Italian botanist & traveller.
7. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
8. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.