In 1810, Richard John Thornton published the following “Apology” to his subscribers, explaining why his project of botanical illustrations remained incomplete:
It was my original idea, had the times been propitious, to have greatly enlarged this part of the work, and presented the world with seventy PICTURESQUE BOTANICAL COLOURED PLATES, in which case another distribution of them would have been made, and every class illustrated by SELECT EXAMPLES of the most interesting flowers, accurately described, and immortalized by poetry: but during the progress of this expensive work, with the exception of a few months respite, infuriate war has constantly and violently raged, which, like a devouring conflagration, destroys everything before it; commerce, agriculture and The Arts, all the sources of public prosperity, and private happiness, are by it dried up and annihilated.