In Coste's papers information abounds on the corrections he made to the several editions of his translation of Locke. It would be an invidious task to transcribe the long lists of errata that he sends to faithful La Motte, who seems to supervise the work of the press, but it may prove interesting to know the names of great people on the Continent who are to receive presentation copies of the _Essay_. They are "the nuntio in Brussels, the Duchesse du Maine, M. Rémond in Paris, Abbé Salier, sub-librarian to the King."[289] In 1737, he mentions the success of the _Thoughts concerning Education_, reprinted in Rouen, upon the fourth Dutch edition. But the _Reasonableness of Christianity_ fell dead from the press, the Paris booksellers not having a single copy in 1739.
On the spread of Locke's ideas on the Continent, Coste's letters bear out the evidence to be gathered elsewhere, notably from the Desmaizeaux papers in the British Museum. While the _Thoughts concerning Education_ and the _Essay_ were eagerly read, no one seemed to care about the social compact theory, toleration, or latitudinarian theology. As early as August 1700, Bernard writes to Desmaizeaux from the Hague that "Mr. Locke's book in French sells marvellously well." In 1707, according to Mrs. Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury's wife, the _Essay_ was extensively read in Brussels.[290] In 1721, Veissière informed Desmaizeaux that he had presented the chancellor in Paris with "a miscellaneous collection of pieces of _Look_, in English," and received profuse thanks. The same year, another correspondent from Paris congratulated Desmaizeaux upon the publication of "_M. Look's_" posthumous works, and begged for information on the meaning of the words _gravitation_ and _attraction_, "the English language," he added, "not being quite unknown to me." This, of course, was before Voltaire had "discovered" either Locke or Newton and summed up for the benefit of his countrymen their respective contributions to the advancement of anti-clericalism and free thought.
But it must be borne in mind that Peter Coste was not entirely engrossed in translations of Locke. One day, he gave La Motte his appreciation on Richard Cumberland's _De legibus naturæ disquisitio philosophica_ "written in so rude a style one does not know whether it be Latin or English.... Those defects," he added, "have disappeared from Barbeyrac's translation." But an "English gentleman, a friend of Mr. Locke, with whom he studied in the same college at Oxford," has undertaken to publish an abridged edition "ampler than the original one and still less readable."