A FANTASTIC REQUEST

T IS rare that I receive a request that is fit for publication, but the following is so well writ that it must be shared. The following request for a trade licensee was laid in my hands this very afternoon:

Good Physick-

My father, the principle of ye honourable and established firm of Young & Erskine, at the sign of the pipe and leaf, The Docks, Glasgow,  has sent your humble correspondent to the New World to pursue contracts in the main businesses of wool, cotton, hemp & Tobacco. Furthermore, I was charged with discovering new sources for commercial quantities of indigo. woad, gin-sing and other plants rumored to thrive with the mountain fastnesses of Virginia and North Carolina.

Arriving in Charleston, with lengthy papers of introduction from well-kent luminaries of Scotland, I sought trading warrants and was at every door, denied. I then sailed to Savanah and yet later Baltimore, all to no avail. Yet it seems that you, good sir, have the requisite contacts for the issuance of said warrants (according to pub talk, you enabled Mr. Kobuck to become legalized). Might you, in all your goodness, be able to acquire one for your most humble correspondent? I am able to pay in almost any form of specie and will be promptly without murmur.

Trusting it will not burden you, one more boon if possible: know ye of any St. Andrews Society within the Southern Colonies?

Awaiting your reply, I remain

yr most humble svt.

William Young
Sole agent
Young & Erskine of Glasgow