h will
involve you in new trouble for me. But it is trouble you will
not grudge, inasmuch as it promises to have some issue of moment;
at all events the negotiation is laid entirely into your hands:
therefore I must with all despatch explain to you the essentials
of it, that you may know what Wiley says when he writes to you
from New York.

Mr. Putnam, really a very intelligent, modest, and reputable-
looking little fellow, got at last to sight of me about a week
ago;--explained with much earnestness how the whole origin of the
mistake about the First Edition of _Cromwell_ had lain with
Chapman, my own Bookseller (which in fact I had already perceived
to be the case); and farther set forth, what was much more
important, that he and his Partner were, and had been, ready and
desirous to _make good_ said mistake, in the amplest, most
satisfactory manner,--by the ready method of paying me _now_
ten percent on the selling-price of all the copies of _Cromwell_
sent into the market by them; and had (as I knew already)
covenanted with you to do so, in a clear, _bona-fide,_ and to
you satisfactory manner, in regard to that First Edition: in
consequence of which you had made a bargain with them of like
tenor in regard to the Second. To all which I could only answer,
that such conduct was that of men of honor, and would, in all
manner of respects, be satisfactory to me. Wherefore the new
Sheets of _Cromwell_ should now go by _his_ Package direct to New
York, and the other little Parcel for you he could send to
Munroe:--that as one consequence? "Yes, surely," intimated he;
but there were other consequences, of more moment, behind that.

Namely, that they wanted (the Wiley & Putnam house did) to
publish certain other Books of mine, the List of which I do not
now recollect; under similar conditions: viz. that I was to
certify, in a line or two prefixable to each Book, that I had
read it over in preparation for their Printer, and did authorize
them to print and sell it;--in return for which Ten percent on
the sale-price (and all manner of facilities, volunteered to
convince even Clark of Boston, the Lynx-eyed Friend now busy for
me looking through millstones, that all was straight, and said
Ten percent actually paid on every copy sold); This was Putnam's
Offer, stated with all transparency, and in a way not to be
misunderstood by either of us.

To which I answered that the terms seemed clear and square and
every way go