Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/385

345 BUTTERWORTH AND CHURCHILL. 345 rewarded my exertions. My sons, John and Augustus Churchill, have been eight years associated with me. I may be influenced by a father's feelings, but I believe I can honestly state that, by education, earnest purpose in the fulfilment of duty, a high sense of integrity guiding and regulating their transactions, they will be found worthy of your confidence, and thus maintain the character of the house whose reputation and busi- ness transactions have extended to all parts of the world." To this honest expression of well-earned busi- ness contentment, we can only add our wishes that Mr. Churchill's years of retirement may be as happy as his years of toil have been useful and beneficial. Among other technical publishers, Mr. Henry Laurie, whose house dates from the commencement of English hydrography, and whose numerous publica- tions are known wherever English navigation has ex- tended, requires at least a mention here. The oldest existing house of this nature, but one, in Europe (Gerard Hulst Van Keulen & Co., of Amsterdam, being the exception), it was founded by R. Sayer, at the "Golden Busk" (53, Fleet Street), in conjunction with John Senex, the well-known cosmographer. Here Cook's original charts were issued ; and it says some- thing for his accuracy that his " Survey of the South Coast of Newfoundland " has not yet been superseded. On Sayer's death, the business was relinquished to Robert Laurie and James Whittle, and, in 1812, the former was succeeded by his son, R. H. Laurie, who, on the death of Whittle, became sole proprietor. In a short time, the business extended to the production of illustrations of all descriptions, whilst the maps pro- duced, under the care of De la Rochette, John Purdy, 22