The letter begins with contacts between Gibson and
Sir Robert Peel. The writer then comments on the poor position in which his portrait of Gibson had been hung in the Royal Academy exhibition. The portrait was then in the Liverpool exhibition, where it had attracted much local praise. Graham Gilbert comments on Gibson's account of events at Rome, and expresses fears for his own country, condemning Catholic emancipation and the passing of the Reform Bill. He writes that the look of Gibson's statue of
Kirkman Finlay had been improved by changes in the building where it stood. He mentions an outbreak of cholera in Glasgow, and concludes by remarking that he had been disappointed by Steel's statue of
the Duke of Wellington in Edinburgh.