1832 Richard Hill writes from Haiti to the Anti-Slavery Society in London

 

In 1840 Her Majesty’s Government in London offered the post of Lieutenant-Governor of St Lucia to Richard Hill who declined. In 1834 he had been appointed as one of Jamaica’s new stipendiary magistrates tasked to adjudicate disputes between masters and the ex-slave class of apprentices which Parliament had created when it abolished slavery in the colonies. By 1840 he was in charge of the entire team of magistrates, sometimes numbered at forty and sometimes at sixty, and was the link person between them and the Governor. He remained in post until his death in 1872. Born in 1795 he was the son of a Montego Bay merchant who was White and a woman of mixed African and Indian descent; the son therefore counted legally, in the language of the time, as Free Coloured. 

Richard Hill self-portrait circa 1859

His father, also called Richard Hill, was a committed abolitionist who decided that the best thing he could do for his son was send him to England to be educated. The son left at the age of five, lived with members of his father’s family in Lincolnshire, and completed his education at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Horncastle. He returned to Jamaica perhaps only shortly before his father’s death in 1818, an event which left him responsible for sorting out complicated and failing business finances and for the well-being of his two sisters, Ann and Jane. He never married.

He became politically active and from no later than 1823 took part in campaigns to enshrine in law equal rights for Free Coloureds. But in 1826 he set out on travels which took him to Cuba, the USA, Canada, and then to England where in 1827 according to his early biographer, Frank Cundall, “The petition from the people of color of this island to the House of Commons for the removal of their civil disabilities, was entrusted to Hill, who upon the occasion of presenting it was permitted "within the bar" of the House. On that occasion Canning delivered his last speech a splendid effort in favor of the petitioners”. 

Hill stayed on in England, speaking and writing against slavery, and joined in the activities of what is usually called the Anti-Slavery Society but which on paper had a variety of more cumbersome titles. That society decided in 1830 to fund him to travel to the republic of Haiti, at that time comprising the whole island of Hispaniola, to report on the success, or otherwise, of the only Caribbean post-slavery society. They hoped to secure evidence which would refute anti-abolitionist claims that economies without slavery were doomed to failure. Hill’s travels in Haiti were extensive and included researches into its natural world and natural resources. 

Part of Hill’s correspondence from his time in Haiti is now in Oxford’s Bodleian Library and excerpts have been published online but this letter appeared in a 2025 auction, misdescribed as a “Missionary Letter”. He writes from Jacmel on the southern coast of Haiti, close to Jamaica, and the island’s main trading port. It may be that the letter’s sharp rebuke to the limited imagination of the Anti-Slavery Society’s committee members led to it being put away in a different drawer. There is no docketing note such as is usually present on filed correspondence. 

Matters worsened on Hill’s return when he discovered that the Society had defaulted on a commitment to provide (out of his own remuneration) regular financial support for his sister Jane who was with him in England. For this and other reasons he cut his connection with the Society though maintaining contact with individual members – the letter singles out the Clapham Sect’s Zachary Macaulay (father of Thomas Babington Macaulay) in a sympathetic sentence. His later successful career in colonial Jamaica included that offer of a Lieutenant-Governorship suggests that he was neither lacking in ability or over-inclined to be difficult; by inference his grievance with the Anti-Slavery Society most likely had some justification.

The Bodleian letters provide evidence of Hill’s deep interests in the natural world and not exclusively in relation to agricultural potential; later in life he wrote extensively on natural history and collaborated with Philip Henry Gosse (the father of Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son) on The Birds of Jamaica (1847). The title page of the original edition credits authorship to Gosse but immediately adds “Assisted by Richard Hill Esq of Spanish-Town”; this credit is not always preserved in later editions. As a result of his collaboration and friendship with Gosse, Hill corresponded with Charles Darwin on several topics and supplied him with Jamaican bees and detailed notes on them. The Darwin Correspondence Project has transcribed the text of five letters from Hill to Darwin.

All this (and more) causes me some surprise to discover that Richard Hill does not have a full-length modern biography; the last full-length study appears to be that written as an inaccessible doctoral dissertation by Marlene Manderson-Jones in 1973.  It is, I think, an index of relative neglect that he currently exists online as both “planter” and “former slave”. 

*

Transcription

Addressed to: Thomas Pringle Esqr 18 Aldermanbury London [address of the Anti-Slavery Society] per [ship] Birmingham. Landed at Liverpool; London arrival postmark 21 April 1832

Datelined: Jacmel. February 29 1832 / Haiti

My dear Sir

I yesterday received your Communication apprizing me of “the resolution” of your Committee commanding my immediate return to England. In complying with it, you must be aware, that it is not easy in a Country like this in which almost all communication with you is circuitous, either through America or the Continent of Europe and that at not very rapid intervals, to find a ship at a week’s notice. I promise you however to take all my measures with a view to the most speedy arrival with you. 

You intimate to me that my stay here has been too protracted already. As the resolution does not state the reasons which have led to my recal so hastily I am left to conclude that there may be in it some displeasure at the supposed slowness with which I make my journeys. I can only say that though my Christian belief is quite as strong as the generality of mens I have not that faith which can remove Mountains. My path is frequently a flowery one but it is any thing but smooth – and however the speaking of many tongues may be a sign of the Millenial age commencing in the world, that portion of it in which the crooked ways are to be made straight has not yet begun [written over commenced] in Haiti. Persons who can know nothing of the difficulties of travelling, but from what they feel in the inconvenient length and breadth of a mail Coach, or the slowness with which horses are changed by the way side Inn have no means of judging my speed. I can tell you however that people here are surprized I should have gone in the space I have done in the course of 15 months. From June to October was incessant rain, and yet I was travelling. From January to June, a killing drought, yet I was riding frequently fifty miles a day. My poor animals have been taught to eat all sorts of food, and I to endure all sorts of calamities, and if among these I am in the end to count the mistrust of friends  - such too, as boast commiseration for their fellow men beyond men in general, well then, my measure of evils is accomplished, and the wave that puts me on your shores again, will be an ebbing Tide to me. 

I have not received the letter you speak of. The present one is the next date after the one of May to which I replied last month, immediately after it was handed to me. I can see by the date of the present Communication, that you have put your letters in the post office for the wrong packet [boat], that is the first Monday in the month instead of the third, in which case Government frequently despatch the letters by ship [that’s to say, not by a regular Royal Mail packet service], though scarcely think, that this will account for any failure in their transit.

I sincerely hope Mr Macaulay’s health will be found reinvigorated with the coming Spring. I can see that to an active mind, he has been adding of late an anxious heart under domestic affliction [Zachary Macaulay’s wife Selina Mills died in 1831]. Do present my best wishes to him.

With respects as usual    Believe me     Yours faithfully & obediently   

 Richard Hill

To Thomas Pringle Esq 18 Aldermanbury London

References

Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MSS. Brit. Emp. s. 18, C1

Manderson-Jones, Marlene   Richard Hill of Jamaica: his life and times, 1795-1872 (University of Jamaica, doctoral dissertation, 1973).  I have not seen this work.

Cundall, Frank “Richard Hill”, Journal of Negro History, Vol 5, Nr 1 (1920)

Hanley,  Ryan Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing c. 1770-1830 (2019)

Wikipedia: Richard Hill (activist)

 

Thomas Coleman Chandler writing from Fairfield Plantation Virginia in 1847

 

Thomas Coleman Chandler is well-known to the internet; it was to his tobacco plantation at Fairfield in Virginia that the Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson was taken after being wounded by friendly fire in 1863.  The Chandlers knew Jackson and he had previously stayed at Fairfield. The Fairfield secondary building (the Office) in which he died has been preserved by the US National Parks Service but the main Fairfield house from which this letter was written no longer exists. There are many images of both buildings avialable on the internet.

The letter was written by Chandler addressed to his daughter Mildred; it was written in 1847 a couple of years after Chandler had purchased the Fairfield plantation which was worked by around sixty slaves until slavery was abolished after the defeat of the Confederate armies. The plantation had a very favourable location close to the Guinea station of the railway constructed in the 1830s and which ran in a more or less straight line north from the Virginia state capital in Richmond and through Guinea to the port of Baltimore from which tobacco was exported to Europe. From the letter, it will be seen that Thomas Chandler used the railway to send a trunk down to Richmond where Mildred is a pupil or pupil teacher in Mrs Mead’s school.  Mrs Meade/Mead was the widow of the Reverend Zachariah Mead by whom she had children; she opened her school in the state capital in 1841 and ran it successfully for over a decade. The internet knows a lot about her life and her school. But I can find nothing about Mildred Chandler though it knows several Mildred Chandlers from this period; it may be that she died young though it may be that she can  be found deep in one of the many Chandler online genealogies.

Transcription

Addressed to: Miss Mildred Chandler   Richmond Va

No postal markings; probably carried by hand. Endorsed: Answered

Datelined: Fairfield March 31^st 1847

Mildred

I received your Communication yesterday & today which informed me of the scarlet fever being in Mrs Meades school and the death of the little girl, which Mrs Meade had informed me before your letter came to hand which made me feel very uneasy for you. I am not prepared at this time what course to avise you to pursue, But I will say tis much to you, in the even ther should be some two or three cases of fever in the school I think you had better leave until the fever abate if you have any fear upon your mind I will leave it with you. You must write every two or three days so that I may hear from you, we are all well at this time except some of the small negro children with the Hooping Cough. I received a letter from Joseph [his son, a physician] yesterday which informed me he was not very well and that his eyes had been very soar, I have nothing of any importance to write you, I have been informed that your Aunt Jane was to have gone to Hanover and that Enodia would meet her there.

Your affectionate Father T C. Chandler

Tom [his son who later took over the plantation] sent a letter from Fredericksburg maild [?] at the Boulingreen [Bowling Green] to you. P.S I have sent your trunk of Cloths by the Railroad Capt. (Mr Ruth) which he will have it sent to you J.C.C

References (there are others easily found)

https://www.nps.gov/places/chandler-house-site.htm

https://randomthoughtsonhistory.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-couple-of-weeks-ago-i-stopped-in-at.html

https://www.nps.gov/places/guinea-station.htm

https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2015/03/the-unstoppable-anna-maria-mead-chalmers/

Mr Disraeli apologises 1844 and Mrs Disraeli invites 1845

 

In January 1844, the ambitious Tory politician Benjamin Disraeli published a long political novel Coningsby whose characters were so obviously based on real people that a A New Key to the Characters in Coningsby was promptly published: the character of Mr Ormsby was based on the very wealthy and not very popular Tory MP Quintin Dick and the Marquess of Monmouth was the Marquess of Hertford, even wealthier but more agreeable; he had long been Quintin Dick’s political patron. Both appear elsewhere on this site thanks to an old dealer postal history stock which I acquired and which contained over fifty letters addressed to Dick.

On May 27 1844, Disraeli penned a scrappy note and half-apology to Quintin Dick which is transcribed below; it lacks the original envelope. The passage in Coningsby to which it relates is probably this: “All this time Mr Ormsby, as the friend of Lord and Lady Monmouth, remained shaking his head; but as a member of society, and therefore delighting in small scandal, appropriating the gossip with the greatest avidity”.

Ambitious politicians need friends as well as enemies and the second, longer letter to Quintin Dick written in December 1845 by Mrs Disraeli may well constitute out-reach work on her husband’s behalf. The handwriting is among the worst I have encountered and I am grateful to Professor Daisy Hay for breaking off from other things to provide a first draft transcription with queried words, of which I have been able to unquery some at the cost of enormous effort.  The complete Key to the Characters will have to wait on someone else’s work.

Click to enlarge

There are two main elements to the letter: first, Mrs Disraeli invites Dick to join them in Paris (at what seems to me rather short notice); and, second, the stress she places on the fact that Disraeli is moving in the highest circles of French government and society, something which would surely impress the status-conscious Quintin Dick. The letter does not provide a year date and the postmark on the envelope is illegible; but the reference it contains to a walking trip matches the one described in Daisy Hay’s Mr and Mrs Disraeli and allows the letter to be dated to December 1845 at which time Disraeli held no office other than that of M.P.

The cast of characters named include Lord Howden who was second Baron Howden (1799-1873). The disreputable Earl of Pembroke was separated from his wife and living in Parisian exile; every source tells me that in 1845 he was in a long-term relationship with a ballet dancer Marie Catherine Caroline (Elisa) Schäffer, with whom he already had children, one born in 1844 and the next in 1845. But the name of his partner in the letter cannot be made to match; it definitely looks like “Laffarge” and, to make it worse, I cannot get a reading of the L[ord] or possibly Laft] who is the informant.

However, to pursue the matter down the rabbit hole: in 1840 a cause celèbre French murder trial had at its centre a Madame Lafarge who was convicted of murdering her husband by arsenic poisoning. It was a notorious case and Mrs Disraeli may be likening Pembroke’s ballet dancer to the celebrated arsenic poisoner whose guilt was still being disputed.

At the end of the letter, the best match for “Sir L B” is Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, a peripatetic British diplomat from a well-known family  who had a posting in Paris.

The French Comte Poutarlis matches the “M. P—s” whose picture gallery Coningsby goes to visit in Chapter 5, Book 8 of Coningsby and who is indeed a real person known to Wikipedia as James-Alexandre de Pourtalès, Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855), a Swiss-French banker, diplomat and art collector with a Parisian mansion built for himself and his collections on rue Tronchet. Voilà!

 

Transcriptions

First Letter

My dear Dick

I confess to the personal attack you have discovered. I certainly was thinking of my Dear dear little wife when I wrote p 207

Yours ever Disraeli

Gros[venor] Gate

May 27 ‘44

The new edit[ion] is printed & will be out in 8 & 40 hours.

Second Letter

Datelined:  Decr 16^th     Hotel de l’Europe       Rue de Rivoli

Addressed to: Quintin Dick Esqr M.P.   20 Curzon Street   May Fair   London

Postmarked PARIS but date illegible; part LONDON receiver mark

Flap missing, appears not to have been pre-paid with 10d charged on delivery.

My dear Mr Dick

Nearly two years ago you promis’d to come to Paris when we were here, so I hope nothing will prevent you from doing so, for I am sure you will enjoy all the bustle and gaiity as much as we do: dinners & parties without end.

Madame L. de Rothschild gives her grand ball in about ten days time, which of its self is worth coming here to see: we dined with them last week, but even Dizzys pen could not convey to you a full idia of that gorgeous banquet – I sat next to the Comte Pontarlis whose gallery you may remember Coningsby whent to see – he expressed himself much honoured & we find the Comte most interesting & agreeable – for two months before we came here, we enjoy’d ourselves in the most perfect seclusion - & walked three hundred miles at Cassel, what do you think of that – but I suppose you can think now only be thinking of who is to be the Premier, what confusion! did you ever know the like? no one here ventures to form an opinion, so tell me all you think & hear.  Dis continues in high favor at Court, the last time he was there, Saturday Evng, there was a grand concert only their own family & the Court circle, how regal.

Lord Howden is here whom you must know, in his former Hotel & gives charming dinners.  Also Lord Pembroke with his Madame Laffarge [?] who, Lord …  [?] says, he is more devoted to than ever & has taken a house for 3 years to be out of the way of his friends.

I was happy to hear from Mr Moore that you were quite well & had had been ………

With every kind wish

Sincerely yours Mary Anne Disraeli

Sir L B. has just come in, on his way to Naples

References

Daisy Hay, Mr and Mrs Disraeli: A Strange Romance (2015)

Wikipedia: Louis Philippe I

Wikipedia: James-Alexandre de Pourtalès

Wikipedia: Robert Herbert, 12th Earl of Pembroke

Wikipedia: John Hobart Caradoc, 2nd Baron Howden

Wikipedia: Henry Bulwer, 1st Baron Dalling and Bulwer

Wikipedia: Quintin Dick

Wikipedia: Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford

Wikipedia: Marie Lafarge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Governor of Tetuan writes to the Governor of Gibraltar 1791

 

For several generations the Ash Ash family, originating from Moors expelled from Spain, provided the Governors of Tetuan within the Moroccan state. This autograph letter lacks the outer wrapper within which it was enclosed as also the letter from “His Imperial Majesty” but it does not appear to be a copy letter.

There are three points of interest. Ash Ash could have dictated this letter which is caligraphically and stylistically well  within English written norms of the period but he may have written it himself. He is forwarding a letter written in Arabic which implies that the Governor of Gibraltar would have had access to a translator; that should have been no problem in multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Gibraltar. Thirdly, it identifies a person “Patron Chicardo” who was trusted to carry diplomatic messages by land and sea. Gibraltar still has a street named “Chicardo’s Passage” which suggests that in the past a Chicardo was of some prominence, perhaps as a merchant. But I cannot get any biography for “Patron Chicardo”.

Click to enlarge

Transcription

Outer address wrapper missing

Docketing note:  1791 6 5     9 March Governor of Tangier   Tetuan with the Emperor’s Letter

Addressed to: His Exc^y. Rob^t  Boyd Esq^r  [Governor of Gibraltar]

Tetuan 9 th March 1791

May it please your Excy to receive the Enclosed letter wrote in Harraback [Arabic] which I received yesterday from His Imperial Majesty my Master whom God Preserve & with orders to send it to Your Excy which I have done by Patron Chicardo and hope you will receive it safe & if your Excy should have any Command in this Place & will be pleased to lay them on me shall always be very ready to Serve you.

I am Excy Sir Your Excellys Most Humble & Obed Serv^t

[ Lines of  Arabic script precedes signature in English] Hadge Abdirhaman Ash Ash [modern spelling more often: Abd ar-Rahman Ash'ash ],

 

References

 

1845 Applying for employment with Robert Smith Surtees, author and creator of “Jorrocks”

 This short letter is self-explanatory and is simply an example of an ordinary person applying for employment in the household of a significant local landowner. The Carr family of Dunston Hill wer also signifcant propery owners. Despite the unusual name, I cannot get a convincing genealogy for the writer who signs his name clearly as Wilmot Bridger.

The letter was in a shoebox of Surtees family correspondence sold in 2026  at an English provincial auction; it was probably remainder material left after letters relevant to Surtees' literary career had been removed.

 

Transcription

Addressed to: Mr Surtees Esqr   Hamsterly Hall    Durham

Datelined: Newcastle December the 10^th 1845

Endorsed “Paid” and pre-paid with a Penny red stamp; postmark GATESHEAD DE 10 1845

Pencil docketing note: Application for Bulter’s place – lived with Mr Carr

 

Sir

Excuse the Liberty I take to you but haveing heard you are in want of a Servant Sir I presume to offer myself to you should it be the case I can Sir be well recommended by my last Master Mr [John] Carr Esqr of Dunston Hill with whom I lived in fourteen Months at present reside in Newcastle in Marlborough Crescent Cattle Market at No 13 I am a Married Man but without a Family and my wife will be no annoyance whatever as she is fully occupied and employed  but the way we are situated there is no employment for me which makes me of course not content should it be true you are in want of a servant I shall be glad to wait upon you at any time or place you please to fix I am Sir your Humble Servant Wilmot Bridger

References

Wikipedia: Robert Smith Surtees (17 May 1805 – 16 March 1864) was an English editor, novelist and sporting writer, widely known as R. S. Surtees.

Wikipedia: Hamsterley Hall

Our Man in Genoa and the Great Siege of Gibraltar: John Collet in 1780-1781

 

In another post on this site ( https://www.otherpeoplesletters.com/2026/07/getting-troops-home-at-end-of.html  )  I draw attention to the fact that in the past British officials sometimes treated what would we would think of as official letters as at least in part, and perhaps wholly, as personal correspondence and retained them to be passed to descendants, if any, or sold off at their death. This may explain why the two letters transcribed below are not in public archives. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely in this case, these are letters of which duplicates were sent at the time in hope that at least one would arrive; at a later date if more than one copy of a letter did arrive it may have been weeded and disposed of as surplus to archival requirements.

Both letters are written by John Collet, British Consul in Genoa until his death there in 1786 and addressed to John Raleigh, Secretary to the Town and Garrison of Gibraltar during the Great Siege of Gibraltar 1779-1783 conducted by Spain and France. They bear no postal markings and would have been sent by private arrangement with an available ship, not necessarily a Royal Navy one as the reference to Podesta indicates.

Podesta captained a civilian ship with a mixed nationality crew but operating under a British pass which afforded it a right to British protection. The writer refers to its capture by the “Turks” alluding to the fact that Algiers was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire though operating at least semi-independently. In the first letter, Collet indicates that he is signing off on the departure of ships as if to enemy Cadiz or officially neutral Lisbon though really intended for the relief of Gibraltar. He states that Podesta “will make an attempt soon” and it is this attempt which failed, as the second letter indicates. So these two letters add a little detail to the Podesta story.

At some point, both letters suffered what I take to be water damage, one has had its wax seal torn out. But the docketing notes show that both arrived.

 

Transcriptions

Letter One 1780

Addressed: To John Raleigh Esqr Secretary to the Towen & Garrison of Gibraltar

Datelined: Genoa 27^th June 1780

Docketing note: 1780 Genoa 27 June

Dear Sir

I received your favour of 5^th Feby & wish I cou’d have executed Mrs Raleigh’s Commission [but?] no Vessels can afford the exhorbitant Insurances demanded, some tho’ have attempted thro’ my instigation clear’d out for Cadiz, or Lisbon, but have been stopt by the Ennemies Cruizers. Podesta will make an attempt soon, wish he may succeed [see next letter for the outcome]. I shou’d take it as a particular favour if You wou’d write me as any occasion offers that may know how You go on.

Pray present my humble Respects to the Governor & Lieut Gocvernor. The Toulon fleet was to sail on the 18^th Inst with eight & twen[ty] transports suppos’d for Cadiz.

My kindest salutes wait on [Mrs] Raleigh & do You believe me to be Sir

Your must Obdt & Hble J. Collet

J.Raleigh Esqr.

 

Letter Two 1781

Addressed: To John Raleigh Esqr   Secretary to the Town & Garrison of Gibraltar

Datelined: Genoa the 21^st Febr 1781

Docketing note: Genoa 21 Febr 81

Sir

In my former Letters I had the honour to send you Coppies of Several Letters I wrote you via Mahone [Port Mahon, Menorca under British control until 1782] as likewise of others deliv’d here to some Masters of  Vessels bound to your place several of which have been oblig’d to dispose of their Cargoes on the Coast of Spain, some have been taken by the Spaniards & poor Podesta by the Turks & carried into Algiers, as allready advis’d you of, his poor wife & the families of the Crew  aboard have presented me the Inclosed petition [not present now] to send you & to lay the same before His Excellency’s Clemency – heartily wishing may have the desired effect, assuring you their misfortune is much lamented in this place, & the more for having the Maditerreanean … in such ….. My humble respects to His Excell & General Elliott & to Lieut. Govr. Boyd & Compliments to Mrs Raleigh I am with great truth Sir

Your most Obed & Hble, Servt   John Collet

 

To John Raleigh Esqr

References

Roy and Lesley Adkins, Gibraltar The Greatest Siege in British History (2017)

How Patronage Worked: Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke 1678-1752

 

The central paradox of collecting is that many and maybe most collectors damage the things they collect. This is obvious in the case of butterfly collectors who kill what they collect and then store the dead things carelessly. Stamp collectors peel stamps from envelopes, damaging them in the process and the worst autograph collectors cut out the signature from the letter and discard the unwanted content. I have written about this - see the References.

This letter was more than once in autograph collections and was not reduced – the full sheet has not been cropped – but an early collector probably before 1914 felt obliged to paste on a label at the same time mis-spelling Bolingbroke’s name. In 2004 it was sold as a single lot in an autograph sale and, along with a second item, realised £262 including premiums. But I found it remaindered a couple of decades later in an auction mixed lot.

The letter indicates an intention to secure a church living (rector or vicar) for someone who is now only a curate; it is undated but by reference to the careers of Thomas Coke and Bolingbroke, who used the name St John until made a Viscount, it is earlier than 1712 and probably later than 1700. The Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal passed thorugh several hands in this period and canot be definitely identified. from the scant information the letter provides. 

The unusual use of a first name (“Dear Tom”) reflects the intimacy of the two men: Thomas Coke was not only a fellow member of Parliament but a fellow rake; correspondence from St John to Coke includes a letter which offers to make a housemaid sexually available (see Reference).

Click to Enlarge

  

Transcription

Addressed: For Thos Coke Esqr   Thele [?]

No postal markings

Docketing note: Mr St Johns

Dear Tom

There is a living just fallen in my Ld Keeper’s gift which I would if possible beg for one who is now curate, you will oblige me extreamly if you will go early to morrow morning thither wth me or att any other time that may be convenient. It is of little value and att a distance so that I believe there will be no great difficulty in it, but however the sooner he is spoke to ye better. I am for ever yr. H St John

Tuesday evening

References

 Harry Dickinson, “Henry St. John: a Reappraisal of the Young Bolingbroke”, in Journal of British Studies 7(2), pages 33-55.

Trevor Pateman, “Paradoxes of Collecting” in Nabokov Online Journal, volume XIV, dated 2020 

Both Bolingbroke and Thomas Coke have detailed Wikipedia pages.

A Weaver’s Life on the Falls Road Belfast 1827-28

 

Well-off people bought expensive writing papers many of which are little changed in two hundred years; poor people bought cheap papers which have aged badly. The two letters transcribed below appear to have been much handled but the effect of such handing is amplified by the weakness of the paper’s structure. They are falling apart and bits have fallen off.

Click to enlarge

William Coyne is a weaver living on the Falls Road Belfast with his wife Elizabeth. The precise details relating to payment for weaving suggests to me that it was William who wrote the letters though they are signed off by both husband and wife. The letters are addressed to William’s brother Henry who has emigrated to Canada.

The letters are catalogues of illness and death and low wages;  one line indicates that a passage out to North America  will cost about £10, equivalent to forty weeks wages for the lowest paid worker on five shillings per week and twenty weeks for someone doing rather better on ten shillings.

First Letter

Addressed to: Mr Henry Coyne   County of Middlesex   Township of Brunswick   London District    Upper Canada

Datelined: Belfast 29 May 1827

No legible postal markings, carried by hand to Canada and posted there; charge marking “10 ½”

 

Dear Brother

I have just met with a person gawing to Cannada and has onley time to write a few lines hopeing that they will have the good fortune to reach you but we have wrote so frequently every Season that I almost despair of ever hearing from you

There is great desolation in the family since you left this Country Sill and his son is long since Dead so is your Aunt Mary and as for H.Procters family they are nearly extenct – my own family has been in a very poor State of health this many months past  the onley girl we have alive – (Eliza) has been in the Hospital this 13 weeks in a  Feaveaur [?] but we expect that in a few days she will be able to come out our eldest boy Henry is also in a poor state of health the rest of the Familey thank God is tolarble so is your Sister Betty and her Familey – dear Brother as the person is just waiting I have not time to give you more particulars onley let me say that trade never was so miserably bad the gratest earning that the best tradsman can make is from 5 to 7 [presumably shillings] per week and all kinds of provisions high – I trust and hope that this will have the good fortune to [torn] you although many a score [torn]wrote but we are led to [torn] that they had never rech[ed you]

God grant that this may [torn]to hand and find you and your Familey as well and as Happy as we do wish [torn]add no more but remains dear Brother Sister and Friends your ever affectionate Brother and Sister

Wm. and Elizabeth Coyne.

 

Second Letter

Addressed to: Mr Henry Coyne   Port Talbot   County of Middlesex   London District   Upper Canada

Datelined: Belfast March 29^th  1828

No legible postal markings; probably carried by hand to Canada and posted there; charge marking “10 ½”

Dear Brother Sister and Friends

We have recived your letter of the 25 Decr. likewise one dated the 28 J[anuary] which are the onley Letters we have received Since you went to Cannada excepting one wrote the year after you went there – it gives us great Comforting to know that your waurldly Circumstance is such as render you every comfort that this waurld can afford and your kind offers towards us would be excepted with gladness was it in our power to imbrease the opportunity but the state of trade this many years back has put every mains of the kind out of the power of the working Classes who have nothing but their la[bour] to depend on. I will give you a Statement of the Sort of work we have at present and it is considred among the best that is to be had – the 2 boys Henry & John are wor[king] 16 ½ Lawns 5/4 with 180 in the warp and [torn] the weft at 5 ½ [pence] per Ell [?] I am warking 14 ½ at 3 3/8 so nice is the scale of prices at pr[esent] that the Manufacturier will divide a penny into 8 parts one halfpenny is all that is give for the set of a reed till they go  the linth of 16 from this you may have some idea of the way that weavers lives at present – we are all working for Glasgaw [?] we have several Scotch companies here which is a great Chack on the impositions of the old Manufacturier –the plan that you mention of William going might do was he free but he is onley in the 4^th year of his time he is with Mr Marshal which is considred one of the best Houses for trade in the North they have always on the Bond [?]from 20 to 30 of the best workmen as none else will be imployed so that we have reason to expect he will be a good tradesman – yours Sister Betty is in a poor Sate of Health the rest of the Familey  is all well and doing well. Wm is at yearly employment with a Linen Merchants down Lisburn Street. John is in a printfield where he has been there some years past, and Henry is at the tailoring trade with Mr Mack in Bridge Street – my Father in law is still alive but so very poorly that he can hardly go from the bed to the fire the old woman has been dead these 7 or 8 years the 2 boys are well and all sends their kind Love to you and they Familey

 

Thomas Gardners wife is well and lives on part of the farm her Son live on the rest of the Land and is married to a full cousin of his own of the name of Watson the daughter is maried and living in Balandary. Betty Clark is alive her and Tom sends their love to you, Georgie Snell has been in America these 10 or 12 years  the rest of the familey all died here in great poverty except the son who is with A McDonald his wife is also dead the whole familey of the Montgomerys is dead only Mrs Barner – Bob Caldwell is dead the rest of they Familey is well James Proctor and Familey is well up there is none of the Hardys in the Country except Mrs Miskinons and old Charly [torn] them James and the Familey is. John & daughter are married Anns Husband is of the name of Morason but they are both fond of the Bottle which keeps them in a wracthed state of poverty. Sister Neley is well and her daughter Mary is gawing to new York in the corse of next month to her husband who has been there these some years and has sent her £10 to take her and the Child over. I had almost forgot Mr McCray he is still alive but sadly reduced in waurdly circumstances he lives with his Son Archy in Talbot Street but is never to be seen. Sam and the wife is living but in a wratched state of poverty – we can add no more but remains your affectionate Brother and Sister Wm. And Elizabeth Coyne

Direct to me Reeds Row [?] … Falls Road Belfast

 

 

 

An 1828 Letter to Don Guillermo Miller, hero of the Peruvian War of Independence

 

Born in Kent in 1795, William Miller fought in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars and then (in 1817) sailed to Buenos Aires to become a soldier-adventurer on the side of the revolutionaries who brought Spanish rule to an end in Chile and Peru. His presence in London in 1828 may well be explained by the fact that in that year the London publishers Longman & Co brought out a two-volume Memoirs of General Miller in the Service of the Republic of Peru, edited by his brother John Miller. The General returned to Peru, left again in 1836, became British Consul in Hawaii,  returned  to Peru and died in Lima in 1861.

This letter is written by William Black who has just crossed the Atlantic and landed at Falmouth in Cornwall (a common enough disembarkation point). He updates Miller on the progress of what is now known as the Gran Colombia-Peru War of 1828-29 and identifies key figures and locations. Black was (perhaps only as part of a larger role) a Glasgow solicitor and the wax seal on this letter  shows the family motto “Non Crux Sed Lux”; what he was doing in South America and what was his relationship with Miller I have not established. It is clear that he speaks Spanish.

 

Click to enlarge

Transcription 

Addressed to: al Sgr General Don Guillermo Miller   Londres

Datelined: Falmouth 21^st Novr. 1828

Postmarked: FALMOUTH NO 21 1828 London receiver marks 24 and 27 NO with TOO LATE [for delivery] mark and Mss endorsement “Try 13 or 15 Craven St”

Intact wax seal reading “Non Crux Sed Lux”, the general motto of the Black family of Glasgow

Sir

I take leave to enclose a letter which his Excellency Genl. San Martin left with me this morning, under the idea that I would be the bearer of it to you; but I have since found it will be impossible, from unforseen circumstances that that I can now have that pleasure as I shall be under the necessity of proceeding direct to my native city, Glasgow previous to visiting London.

The news his Excy already alludes to in his letter, are the recent changes that have taken place in the affairs of upper Peru – I left Lima upon the 5^th July at that time Genl. Gamarra, at the head of the peruvian army of the south, and by order of his Government, was in possession of La Plata (Chiquisaca) & La Paz & would speedily relieve Bolivia, it was generally understood, of the presence of the Colombian troops. Genl. Sucre has been deserted by nearly the whole of his army, and was in retreat with a few hundred men upon Cochabamba, accompanied by some of the other Genl. Officers. Genl. Urdaneta [General Rafael Urdaneta, loyal ally of Bolivar] still adheres to the same cause. It was said that Genl. Laura had died of the wounds he received in one of the insurrections at Chiquisaca. Genl. Sucre lost an arm, or rather, hand his arm amputated in consequence of a wound he received in endeavouring to quell the first rising of the populace &c at Chiquisaca. The object of the Peruvians in interfering with Bolivia was to do away with, at the desire of a great majority of the inhabitants, the Vitalicia [the first constitution of Bolivia approved in November 1826].system altogether – although it was not known in Peru that Colombia had declared war, the Peruvian Govt. at the head of which is Genl. La Mar, had made, & still continued making any preparations for such an event.

Genl. Castilla [Ramón Castilla, a future president of Peru] was in Lima, & it was understood that he would be entrusted with the command of the army of the north – say from four to five thousand men situated in the neighbourhood of Piura & the Colombian frontier.

Colnl Cutia [?] late prefect interim of Truxillo is minister de Guerra &c & Dr J..Paredes [Dr. José Paredes served as President of the PeruvianConstituent Congress in 1825] of Hacienda.

I have the honor to be, Sir, your very ob. & hble [servant] William Black

General Miller

References

Wikipedia: Don Guillermo Miller

Wikipedia: Gran Colombia-Peru War

Wikipedia: José de San Martín

You can scarcely figure a more loose and disorderly Court than a Committee of the House of Commons on Private Bills....1825

 

The letter transcribed below is a tiny fragment of the paperwork generated by a two-hundred -year-old dispute. Its chief interest is in the remarks it contains on the conduct of proceedings in the London House of Commons, though a modern reader might also note that such was the centralisation of power back then that a small-scale planning permission dispute in Scotland could only be resolved in far-away London.

In 1818 the wealthy landowner John Wauchope constructed the horse-drawn Edmonstone Waggonway to take coal from his mines to the outskirts of Edinburgh. The waggons ran on iron rails and the general idea was to make the coal cheaper at point of delivery than it had been when taken down by horse and cart. But in 1825 a newly formed Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway Company projected a new and longer route capable of taking coal from other mines but required Parliamentary consent to override Wauchope's objections to it passing through his land. Wauchope objected successfully in the 1825 case heard in London but in 1826 a compromise was reached under which Wauchope would receive wayleave – a toll payment – for all coals moved across his land and would also combine his waggonway with the new one. A new Private Bill was thus passed without opposition. 

Sometime later the new railway (still horse drawn) started carrying passengers and Wauchope claimed wayleave for them. This was disputed and the case went to the House of Lords (the passenger traffic was large) and Wauchope won his claim but also lost a fall-back procedural claim in a way significant enough for Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway Co v Wauchope (1842) still to figure in legal textbooks – I provide a reference at the end and have no intention of getting involved in the detail.

The writer of the letter, John Snith, was clearly Wauchope’s agent in London but the name, even with the address, has not led me to further information about him.

 

Transcription

Addressed to: John Wauchope Esqr of Edmonstone   Edinburgh

Datelined: 18 George Street Hanover Square   London 9^th May 1825

Docketing notes: Edinbr & Dalkeith Ry; Mr Smith to Wauchcope May 9 1825 / John Smith 9^th May 1825

Postmarks all smudged.

Dear Sir

I have just come from attending your Committee which sat today from 1. to 4. during which time they examined 1^st Mr Wm. Mackenzie, 2^nd John Grieve, 3^rd Mr James Jardine the Civil Engineer, and 4^th a Mr Wood from Killingworth Coalliery – and they are to examine more witnesses tomorrow when the Committee again meet at one o’clock. I was very much pleased today with both your Counsel who cross examined all the Witnesses and particularly the two first, very sharply, indeed I rather believe that Mr Mackenzie considered himself roughly handled. John Grieve made several bold and I rather think false assertions, amongst others that the Coalliery of Sheriffhall was half a mile nearer to Edinbr. Than that of Edmonstone [Wauchope’s Colliery] while Mr Mackenzie had previously stated that the latter was the nearest. Grieve however said in answer to a question from your Counsel that the Coal brought by the Union Canal, alone, was perfectly sufficient for the supply of the City of Edinbr. altho’ not one Cart load came from the County – an admission which shows that the Public have no interest and indeed the attempt to prove that, was a very feeble one. Your letters to Mr Mackenzie were read at full length, and in my mind, were a very compleat and Gentlemanlike answer to his letters to you, which were likewise read, You can scarcely figure a more loose and disorderly Court than a Committee of the House of Commons on Private Bills – the Judges, Members, come in and go out and are continually changing. Sir George Clerk sat as Chairman and Sir J. G. Suttie Sir James Wemyss Mackenzie (who is not for us)  & General Fergusson sat nearly the whole time – Lord Binning & Mr W^m Dundas were present for a considerable and several other Members looked in. General Fergusson seemed to be decidedly on our side and several times suggested questions to out Counsel and at other times when objections to our questions were made, he put them as a Member of the Committee, in short I was much pleased with him and consider them very friendly

Our Counsel seem to have got a right view of our Case and call the attempt of our Opponents a most iniquitous Job p in haste, I remain ever Dear Sir  Yours sincerely  John Smith

John Wauchope Esq of Edmonstone

References

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5a8ff8c660d03e7f57ecd1a9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_and_Dalkeith_Railway

https://threadinburgh.scot/2022/12/28/the-thread-about-the-second-day-of-christmas-an-edinburgh-french-connection/