‘I shall be glad to hear the result of your experiments, and am truly sorry that I can do so little for you.
‘J. Priestley.’
‘Birmingham: March 31, 1783.
‘Dear Sir,—I received from Mr. More[[111]] two bottles of water, one marked Ｘ, which Mr. Boswell informed him was from the spring mentioned in his “Treatise on Watering Meadows,” and another without any mark from a spring arising in a bed of sand, and I examined them immediately. I found the former to contain air much purer than that of the atmosphere; but the latter air was much worse, that is, phlogisticated; a candle could hardly have burned in it. This last I should think to be the better spring for the watering of meadows, or perhaps it might have been better corked; for on the 19th, though I put the corks in again immediately, but without any cement, I found the air in both very pure, more so than the purest before, and hardly to be distinguished, and they were so this day when I examined them again. They should be examined on the spot. The air in the spring from the sand was much warmer than that in my pump water, or than that of water in general. But water exposed to the open air soon loses the phlogiston it contains.
‘Perhaps much of the effect of water on meadows is that, at this time of the year, it comes out of the earth considerably warmer than the roots of the grass. What think you of this?
‘I expect to set out for London this day three weeks, and shall stay there about a fortnight. I should be glad to meet you there, when we shall find an hour’s conversation better than all our correspondence. Wishing you success in all your laudable pursuits.
‘I am, dear Sir,
‘Yours &c. &c.
‘J. Priestley.’
At Chadacre, six miles from Bury, resided John Plampin, Esq.[[112]] who had three daughters, all, at this time, unmarried and at home. I was intimately acquainted with them. Two of these ladies were much distinguished by their beauty, and reigned as toasts throughout the county: Sophia married afterwards to the Rev. Mr. Macklin, and Betsy married in 1794 to Orbell Ray Oakes, Esq. of Bury. I introduced my friend Lazowski to these ladies, and he was much at Chadacre, admiring not a little the youngest of them. They persuaded their father to give a ball, at which the Duke of Liancourt, his two sons, Lazowski and myself were present, and the evening passed with uncommon hilarity till the rising sun sent us home. Mr. Symonds afterwards gave a weekly ball when the Frenchmen were with him, and these parties were uncommonly agreeable.