[printed notepaper:]
Royal Asiatic Society,
5, New Burlington Street, W.,
London,
10th March 1862.
Dear Sir,
I have much pleasure in informing you that I laid before the Council of this Society on Saturday, the 8th inst., your note containing the offer to purchase and present to the Society (in lieu of your bearing a part of the cost of printing your Translations in the Journal), a copy of Botta’s work on Assyrian Antiquities, half bound in Morocco, and catalogued by Quaritch at the price of £27.
The copy in question had been examined in the interim after receipt of your note, by Sir H. Rawlinson, Mr Norris, and myself. It was also sent by Mr Quaritch for inspection by the Council, and proved to be a perfect copy, quite new or unused.
The liberality of your offer was felt and appreciated by the Council, the value of the work being well known; and after a careful consideration of the state of the Society’s finances, it was unanimously resolved to accept the proposal, with the warm thanks of the Council for your kind gift.
The work will be left here in my charge by Mr Quaritch until he may receive your instructions on the subject.
I presume you would wish an inscription to be written in the work as presented by you to the Society.
Believe me, my dear Sir, faithfully yours,
J. W. Redhouse.
H. F. Talbot, Esqre
[envelope:]
H.F.Talbot Esqre
Millburn Tower
Edinburgh
[blindstamp on flap:]
R.A.S.