My manuscript, when fully drafted, ran to more than 480,000 words, which was far too long, and has now been edited down to under 160,000 words. Work is continuing on drawing the threads together to prepare it for publishing. It has not been an easy task to delete more than 300,000 words of hard-earned research material.

I decided to publicise this research project on the Internet in the hope that anyone who has primary source material, or who knows the whereabouts of such material, will contact me as a matter of some urgency so that all the records available can be given proper exposure in my book. So far the responses have been very gratifying, bringing in new information, especially about the sinking of HMS Swift in 1770.

As the project nears completion, I am still anxious to receive contact from anyone who believes they have access to, or knowledge of, possible sources of manuscript material, letters, images etc., relating to Sir Erasmus or his extended family. I would be especially pleased to hear from members of the Gower family who descend from the Glandovan or Sandown branches, whether they believe they can assist me or not. Sir Erasmus was a prominent member of their heritage and I believe there should be widespread interest, within the family, of this attempt to chronicle his life and achievements.

All assistance, no matter how significant, will be acknowledged in my book. I have trawled the world's archives for snippets of the life of Sir Erasmus and I want to ensure that nothing of importance is missed, if at all possible.