Bagillt
April 18, 1856
Dear John,
I once more take the opportunity of sending these few lines
to you in hopes to find you enjoying the best of health as these lines leave us
but very indifferent indeed, for I myself has been under the influence of a
very bad cold for some weeks past and indeed cannot get the better of it at
all; worse than I ever had in my life.
And as I have wrote to you before that your mother has been the same but,
thanks be to the Almighty, that she has come pretty well or else I don’t know
what we should of done for I am not able as much as to help her a little with
the oven none. Therefore between this
and other things we don’t know what to do, for as you may be well aware that we
must be very uneasy. For one thing that
you, none of you, has sent us as much as one word of any kind, none since the
eleventh of December. We received the
last letter as your brother Edwin sent, and in that he sent that he would be
sure and send again against the first of January and sooner if he could and
money for us to pay our rent with. And
now it is the eighteenth of April and has not had a single word from any of you
at all for to know how you are now. What
is the reason of Edwin for not sending according to his promise, for I can
assure you for the truth that it keeps Mr. Faulks certainly out of the house
now upon the account that we have not paid him our rent, what he used to
frequent the house with other people several times a week, but I can tell you
he called in the week before last for a glass of ale and he must ask your
mother if we had never heard from America yet, and your mother told him we had
not, and must tell her he says well, by
god I am just tired of waiting, and going out through the door at that time,
and always asking your sister Harriet in the shop if we had never heard from
America whosoever will be in the shop, and keeps saying that it will be another
half a year soon, that is, the thirtieth of June and that will be a year and a
half, and I want to know who is going to pay me for I must have them from
someone or other. Therefore, I suppose
the next time he will come to give us notice and sell all as we have and then
we shall have nothing but to go to the workhouse. But we can say this, that there is been
people as have been in better circumstances than we has been glad to go to the workhouse.
I have sent you a letter within these few weeks back and
never had an answer to that ; therefore we are under our hands by waiting for a
letter every week after another and so we don’t know when to ____. And another thing we should wish to know,
what in the world have we done out of the way that we cannot receive a letter
or a newspaper from you at all. Have not
received a newspaper for many months past and people calling in the house thinking
to see them as usual, but we can never show them any more.
Another thing I have to tell you of is, that you may well
think that it must be of great trouble to both your mother and myself, that is
about your brother James, that we don’t know anything about him, no more than
the man in the moon. I received a letter
from him about the ninth of March last and he was in London then and sending home
for his box and clothes and tools and that he had left the vessel that he went
out of Liverpool with at New York and shipped himself for London, and he wanted
his tools . He meant to go to New York
again and he never sent how we was to send them nor anything of the kind. Only sent us a card in his letter and never
sent how he went nor even asked how we was nor anything. I believe that the lad has lost the little
learning as he had as near as possible, and I wrote a very long letter to him
back again and to send me a better letter than that before I should send
anything to him, and that I thought that he had better come home that he could
get employment at Pentre Mills that It was going __ there now as well as ever
it did, but he took good care that he never sent home afterword’s. Therefore you may be well aware that it must
cause us as a father and mother a great deal of uneasiness, for I can assure
you that I can see in the newspapers about so much mischief going on about the
country that it causes me nearly to be afraid to take of a newspaper nearly for
fear that I should see anything about him, and we don’t know what to think of him,
but are in great hopes the Almighty will grant him a great deal of grace and
always keep his hold in him. That is
always our prayer for him.
I must conclude for the present with the kindest regard to
you all from your brothers and sisters all, and that they all of them are very
troublesome that we don’t hear anything from you and very sorry that they
cannot help us in our old age, for we shall not be here long for to trouble any
of you . I have to tell you that your
sister Sophia has been confirmed of a very fine boy after very severe illness
of about ten or eleven days but she is getting on but very slowly indeed.
I must conclude as I have said before with mine and your
mother’s kind regard to you all together as a family. And this from your dutyful father and mother,
Robert and Sarah Benjamin
You must excuse my writing this time for I can hardly hold
myself over this for to do it only I think you would rather take up with it.
A scolding from father...............
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