[Letter from Charles Bonnycastle to Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough, architect & proctor at University of Virginia]
[10 April 1826]
Dear Sir
The plan which you suggest for the disposet of the instruments, is, I am sorry to say, one that will not remove the inconvenience I am exposed to. It is not alone as a place for receiving my instruments that I wish for the room in the Rotunda -- but as a Lecture Room where my students can see the experiments made with them, which in my own is impossible. The pavilion I do not think a place of security for instruments of some hundred pounds in value -- & must object to taking charge of them till some more apropriate room is found. The men carrying backwards & forwards every lecture day the instruments required, would be a risk I do not wish to incur.
You, of course, are best acquainted with what is reckoned possible at the University -- But as the work to be performed is so slight I cannot help feeling very much mortified & annoyed that all attempts to get it executed -- with the Sanction of the Rector & Visitors to back me -- & nothing that I can see but the interest of Messors Nelson & Di[N]smore to oppose me -- can so readily be frustrated. Yours
C: Bonnycastle
P:S. No preperations are yet making for plastering -- or, I beleive, for any thing else.