Boston April 14th. 1760 Sr.,

The letter I recieved by Mr. Divol I did not Answer as it deserved & as I intended expecting he would return sooner than he did. I can't express how pleased I was at the discovery wch. yr. Epistle (for that name this one of a thousand deserves) convinced me I had made. I don't pretend to claim it as an discovery Invention but really a discovery & as truly so as that of Gunpowder & much more valuable to me that of Gunpowder or the much desired Longitude for by this Sr. I can as with Gunpowder Operate on you at a distance & know my Scituation with regard to you more as Surely than by the discovery of Longitude & with as much reall pleasure as Sailors would know their distance course & distance to their desired port by the discovery of Longitude.185The discovery I allude is a sure means of knowing yr. existence & making you comunicate yr. invaluable state of mind & employments. In the Natural World we have found a strange Sympathy between different Bodys, thus the Loadstone attracts Iron, Aqua Regia operates on Gold & aqua fortis on Silver, And the hidden qualitys of many valuable bodys are only known by the application of some other Bodys to them. & thus Sr. to write to you on the Subject of Judging horse flesh is a sure Means to throw open yr. Soul & make you discover excellencys which you industriously Strive to hide. O blessed Day in which by being cheated in horse flesh I first was laid under a Necessity of applying to you, O Noble Animal form'd by Nature the only Heroe to break the bulwarks of yr. Mind & penetrate to the Magazines of yr. inexhausted Kingdom; Nor will I ever forget you O individual of this Noble Species tho' broken Winded & unfit for my use, but will record you with a remembrance before that of Buchephalus1 seeing thou hast eventually led me on to more valuable acquisitions then he ever did his Master. I doubt Sr. after this I never shall have a horse that suits or at least I lay at yr. Mercy for the least signal? reservedness from you will disgust me to my horse, I fully determine.

RTP

Dft ; endorsed: "Letter to Abel Willard April 1760."

1.

The favorite horse of Alexander the Great (N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 2d ed. [Oxford, 1970]).