Autograph letter signed from Colin Maclaurin discusses the French expedition to Peru, 6 December 1740

Autograph letter signed from Colin Maclaurin addressed to James Stirling "at Leadhills", dated 6 December 1740, discussing the French expedition to Peru ("Mr Short writes that an unlucky accident has happened to the French mathematicians in Peru. It seems they were shewing some French gallantry to the natives’ wives, who have murdered their servants, destroyed their instruments and burn’t their papers"), and Short's observation of the satellite of Venus before summarising "all that I have printed in my book relating to the attraction of spheroids and the figure of the Earth".