Autograph Letter Signed ('E C Hawtrey') from Rev. Dr Edward Craven Hawtrey, Provost of Eton College, written in warm terms to an American who had previously visited England, introducing Thomas Bendyshe, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.

3pp., 16mo. 52 lines. Bifolium. Very good, on lightly-aged paper. Addressed by Hawtrey, on reverse of second leaf, to the 'United States Hotel'. The letter begins: 'My dear Sir, | It seems a long Time since I had the Pleasure of receiving you at Eton, and a wide Sea now rolls between us, but I have not forgot your kind words at parting; that if I could not myself reach America and see you on your own Land I should "send some one".' The voyage to America of Hawtrey's 'young Friend, Mr Thomas Bendyshe, formerly my Scholar, but now a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge', who 'bears a high character in his College & is a Good Scholar', has given him such an opportunity. In a satirical reference to the Revolutions of 1848 Hawtrey states that Bendyshe has chosen to spend a 'long Season of Leisure' visiting 'his Anglo-Saxon Brethren on the other side of the Atlantic', rather than 'the insane and disorganized Population of Europe, who are weary of thirty years of tranquil Prosperity'. Hawtrey considers himself 'singularly fortunate in being able to present him to you and to Mr Everett [Edward Everett, American ambassador, 1840-1845], who have left Friends & admirers in England more than perhaps even yourselves imagine'. He concludes in the hope that circumstances may allow the recipient to return 'to a country, where you are never likely to be forgotten'.