Dear Sir,
I return you many thanks for the remainder of the Account <1> of your very curious Photographic process, <2> which I shall keep secret till you shall give it to the World. The Gallic Acid you have been so kind as to send is not to be got here, & what I had in my possession for examining its doubly refractive structure is not pure I presume.
I am unluckily on the eve of leaving this to attend the General Assembly of our Church, <3> which is at present in a state of illegal persecution by the Civil Courts, so that I shall not be able for a fortnight to put your process into practice.
I am Dear Sir, Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster
St Leonards
St Andrews
May 15th 1841
Notes:
1. For security, WHFT had sent details of his method in two parts, the first of which Brewster acknowledged in Doc. No: 04252.
2. The calotype process.
3. The Church of Scotland. The right of a patron to impose his choice of minister upon a congregation was being contested. Brewster was a prominent supporter of the anti-patronage movement. Just two years later occurred the Disruption of the General Assembly, when the Church split in two [see Doc. No: 04839]. It was the desire of the painter David Octavius Hill (1802–1870), Scottish painter & photographer to commemorate this historic event that led to Brewster introducing him to John Adamson’s brother Robert, thus beginning a brilliant photographic partnership. [See also Doc. No: 04573].