The purpose of this Note is to make available to scholars the text of a new letter by Sir William Jones (1746–94) to Richard Johnson (1753–1807), recently discovered in an antiquarian book and manuscript catalogue issued in 1924 by Maggs Brothers, the London dealers, and otherwise unpublished and unrecorded.
Johnson, an important though neglected figure in the history of the British ‘discovery’ of Hinduism, held a number of influential posts within the East India Company's administration during his sojourn in India from 1770 to 1790. But it is for his investigations into Indian literature and music, including his substantial and important collection of Indian miniatures and Persian and Sanskrit manuscripts, that he deserves to be better known.