Katharine Read, Jermyn Street, to the President and Directors

1p.

The general meeting of 6 December 1768 [SA/5] had voted to send a petition to the King to obtain his support in their internal disputes. Following the news of the Royal Academy of Arts' Instrument of Foundation on 10 December, the Directors' meeting of 13 December decided to send a strongly worded version, based on the rights conferred to the Society of Artists by its charter of 1765. The petition, while hoping for a reconciliation, stopped short of demanding full union with the RA. Read was the only Fellow to oppose the petition, on the grounds that it did not state their demands explicitly. Her letter was not read to the Society until 5 January.

Read had shown their petition to a "very sensible friend" after it had been brought to her by Mr Cosway. Her friend had observed that the petition sought royal patronage only, which the Society already possessed under the terms of its charter, and that they ought instead to lay before the King the ungenerous proceedings of their antagonists: unless they did this, their grievances were not likely to be redressed.

Copy of SA/34/26.