Veranda.
Aug^st 12.
1846.

My dear Sir,

I will communicate your message to M^r Bridges; ^<1> the name of the bookseller at Valetta is Muir, ^<2> and I have no doubt that he c^d have a constant sale.

I am much obliged by y^r promise of handing me a proportion of the profits on my negatives and only wish I c^d afford to do you an unlimited number for nothing, this however is hardly to be expected, as the kind of subjects I sh^d do for my own purposes are quite different from those adapted to general public sale, and it also takes much time which I sh^d otherwise devote to painting and drawing of which I am so fond.

You cannot be surprised at my not having yet sent any more negatives to Henneman, ^<3> as I have been waiting for copies of those which I have already sent and asked him for, and you know the first proofs are always sent to the Artist: it was also your advice that I sh^d send them in detachments.

I wanted to puzzle you respecting Swansea harbour, in which I succeeded, as the fact is that it is a copy from an oil painting of some size just finished of my own, I was afraid that the jumping dog w^d have let out the secret. I was much pleased with the success of the art applied this way.

I have no doubt that the Misses Jenkins here c^d secure a certain sale of local subjects of which there are some interesting enough.

The general ignorance of the art is wonderful. I was at a party two days since where were L^d and L^y C. Fitzroy, ^<4> and other persons who had equal opportunities of acquiring information on such points, to whom I shewed some specimens, and who were all totally ignorant of the existence of the art: and addressed me as the Inventor, which I begged to disclaim of course in y^r favour.

I think S. Suscipy[?] a highly respectable optician in the Corso at Rome w^d prove an effective Agent in the cause.

I have been lately corresponding with Davidson ^<5> at Edinburgh touching his large Cameras which do pictures double the size of ours: he asks £23, and I tell him I sh^d be glad to buy one if he will inform me of the method which Mr Hill ^<6> there uses to do groups with them in 30 seconds, which Davidson assures me he saw done within the last week: if this c^d be done as to portraiture in London on such a scale, a large fortune might be speedily made.

Yours very truly
Calvert R Jones.

[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esq^r.
Oriel Lodge
Cheltenham

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Notes:

1. Rev George Wilson Bridges (1788–1863), photographer & traveller.

2. George Muir Jnr. (1813–1868), bookseller in Malta.

3. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer.

4. Possibly Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, Lord Raglan (1788–1855), and his wife.

5. Thomas Davidson (1798–1878), scientific instrument maker and Daguerreotypist.

6. David Octavius Hill (1802–1870), Scottish painter & photographer, who was in partnership with Robert Adamson (1821-1848); together they produced the largest and finest collection of early calotype portraits.