My dear John Blakeney,

It is with great interest that I have read your book which, as you tell me, purports to be a biography of Sir Percy Blakeney ­ known as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

You do not tell me if you claim to be an actual descendant of the famous Sir Percy, but you certainly seem to have collected a great deal of information, not only about him, but also about his ancestors: you clearly trace his descent from the first Sir Percy to the English Blakes and from them to the Scarlet Pimpernel, the subject of this memoir. As far as I can judge, your deductions are pretty accurate.

My own searchings after Sir Percy and his doings end with the French Revolution, the period of his most romantic exploits: the subsequent transformation of his yacht, The Daydream, into a privateer corvette, his acquaintance with Lord Nelson and his seafaring adventures during the Napoleonic wars come as news to me, but I can quite well understand that with his adventurous disposition, he found the enforced calm after the end of the Terror irksome and turned his attention and unfailing energy into a new channel. His destroying the two temporarily abandoned French frigates, single-handed, by a stratagem which seems almost miraculous but which is quite feasible, is perfectly consistent with his character and methods.

I feel a certain degree of regret that I did not follow Sir Percy's career after the end of the Terror, but I abandoned him and the story of his doings after the end of the French Revolution, thinking that the fall of Robespierre and the establishment of the Consulate was the natural conclusion of his activities.

I certainly feel a sense of gratitude to you for your persevering research into the antecedents of Sir Percy Blakeney, and also into his subsequent adventures, for you have certainly succeeded in filling up many gaps in the life history of that most remarkable man. Of course, I cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of your information anent these adventures, but they seem to me to be quite consistent with the many fragments of his life history already known to me.

In any case, please accept my best thanks for this most interesting biography of my favorite hero of romance.

Yours v. sincerely,

Emmuska Orczy
Monte Carlo.