TO DOCTOR PETER SHAW, PHYSICIAN TO HIS MAJESTY, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON, AND OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY.
Reading edition
Sir,
The brewing of malt liquors has hitherto been conducted by such vague traditional maxims, that an attempt to establish its practice on truer and more fixed principles must, like every new essay, be attended with difficulties.
Your works, Sir, will be lasting monuments, not only of your great abilities, but also of your zeal for the improvement of the arts, manufactures, and commerce of your country. You will therefore permit me to place under your patronage this treatise, which, if it can boast no other merit, has that of having been undertaken and finished by your advice and counsel.
Some favor, I hope, will be shewn for this distant endeavour to imitate the laudable example you have set, and whatever be the success, I shall ever glory in the opportunity it has given me of professing myself publicly,
Sir,
Your most obedient,
And most obliged humble Servant,
Michael Combrune.
Hampstead, Middlesex, December 15, 1761.