To one of the enthusiasts in mystic divinity, who had sent for his perusal an enormous manuscript, he replied: ‘I am very much obliged for the esteem you have of my knowledge, which, I am very sure, comes far short of your opinion. [Sidenote: Sloane to Gabriel Nisbett, May, 1737, MS. Sloane, 4069, f. 38.] As to the particular controversies on foot in relation to Natural and Revealed Religion, and to Predestination, I am no ways further concerned than to act as my own conscience directs me in those matters; and am no judge for other people.... I have not time to peruse the book you sent.’ To the worthy and once famous Abbé DE SAINT PIERRE, who would fain have established with SLOANE a steady correspondence on the universal amelioration of mankind, by means of a vast series of measures, juridical, political, and politico-economical, which started from the total abolition of vice and of war, and descended to the improvement of road-making by some happy anticipation—a hundred years in advance—of our own MACADAM, he wrote thus: ‘I should be very glad to see a general Peace established, for ever. [Sidenote: Sloane to St. Pierre, MS. Sloane, 4069, f. 44.] Rumours of war are often, indeed, found to be baseless, and the fears of it, even when well grounded, are often dissipated by an unlooked-for Providence. But poor mortals are often so weak as to suffer, in their health, from the fear of danger, where there is none!’ Letters on high themes like these had their frequent variety, in the shape of proffers of contributions, to be made upon terms, for the enlargement of the Museum, the fame of which had now spread into very humble ranks of society. A single specimen in this kind will suffice: ‘I understand,’ wrote a correspondent of a speculative turn, ‘you are a great virtuoso, and gives a valuable consideration for novelties of antiquity,’—on getting thus far in the perusal, one can imagine Sir Hans murmuring ‘not willingly, I assure you,’—‘a pin has been many hundred years in our family, and was, I am told, the pin of the first Saxon king of the West Angles,’ and so on. [Sidenote: ACQUISITION OF THE MANOR OF CHELSEA.]