I have at last sent everything requisite to begin the Prayer Book at Cambridge. The Bearer Mͬ Tho. Warren is my Deputy in conducting the whole. I have ordered him to inform you of every step he takes, and to desire you would appoint a person to tell out the number of sheets before they go to press and again before they are packed up for Birmingham. Mͬ Bentham will inform you how many sheets per 1000 are allowed for wast. I have attempted several ornaments, but none of them please me so well as the specimen; which I hope will be approved by you and the Gentlemen of the Syndick. I propose printing off 2000 the first impression, but only 1000 of the State holidays &c which the patentee has left out. The paper is very good and stands me in 27 or 28 shillings the Ream. I am taking great pains, in order to produce a striking title-page & specimen of the Bible which I hope will be ready in about six weeks. The importance of the work demands all my attention; not only for my own (eternal) reputation; but (I hope) also to convince the world, that the University in the honour done me has not intirely misplaced their Favours. You will please to accept & give my most respectful duty to the University, particularly to the Gentlemen of the Syndick. I should be very happy if I could make an Interest to a few Gentⁿ. to whom the work would not be disagreeable, to survey the sheets, after my people had corrected them as accurately as they are able, that I might, if possible, be free from every error of the press; for which I would gladly make suitable acknowledgements. I procured a sealed copy of the Common prayer with much trouble and expense from the Cathedral of Litchfield, but found it the most inaccurate and ill printed book I ever saw: so that I returned it with thanks[113]. Evidently neither the university nor Bentham was willing to give Baskerville a free hand. Bentham was naturally jealous of his own position and the Syndics' previous experience of leases granted to outside printers had been unfortunate. Reed's criticism is therefore a little too harsh: "This learned body," he writes, "appear to have been influenced in the transaction more by a wish to fill their own coffers than by a desire to promote the interests of the Art; and the heavy premiums exacted from Baskerville for the privilege thus accorded effectually deprived him of any advantage whatever in the undertaking."[114] By a further agreement of 3 July, 1761, Baskerville undertook to pay £12 10_s_ 0_d_ per 1000 for the 4000 copies to be printed of the 12 mo Common Prayer and in a letter of 2 November, 1762, he wrote in a dismal strain to Horace Walpole: