Bagillt
Feb 13, 1852
Dear John,
I once more take the pleasure of sending a few lines to you
in answer to your letter of the 16th inst. and was very glad to hear that you were both
well in health as I am sorry to relate to you our own circumstances, for I don’t
know how greatly, for there is the first thing I have to tell you of is about
your sister Mary Ellen’s illness is that she is so ill that she cannot allow me
for to leave the room for a moment hardly, the very same as you have seen me
yourself with your sister Elizabeth, and we don’t know if we shall have her
with us from one hour to the other, and
that she has gone quite like a skeleton, and she was talking to me and your
mother likewise last night about her brother, John, that he should never see her
any more, but that she was seeing him altogether, and likewise, if in case that
he was near, that she should not be short of anything, but that he was to [sic]
far, that she saw your mother sending to three or four different houses
yesterday for three pence to lend for to get her a drop of wine with, and another
thing, your sister Charlotte and Humphrey and your brother Edwin had come to
see her from Flint last night and they stopped rather late for she was so ill,
and after they bade her good night and went away, I was alongside the bed with
her by myself she says to me, well father, they have all gone to leave us, they
may never happen see me no more she said but thank God for his kindness for to
see her with us today and we cannot tell for how long, but she is very ill,
therefore you may think how it is gone upon us, John, by her being so long for
so many months, and we are gone that we cannot find her for what she should
have, and she knows it to [sic], another thing, she heard Mr. Maurice from the room one day within about a
fortnight, shouting at your mother about the rent, that he frightened her so
much you would not believe and she must tell me of it the beginning of this
week that Maurice was in her mind very much after she had heard him shouting so
much, and about the rent I do not know what
to do for as you have directed me to T. Gardner it is of no use, for I
went to him this time the same as last time and he had plenty for to say to me directly, the first
thing he says that he had wrote to you about a fortnight back and that he had
told you all the particulars how it was, and he told me that if his sister has
all as was due to her it would be only four pounds seventeen shillings, and if
he did pay that it would only be as good will, and that he had given her twelve
pounds worth of clothes before she went away, and he told me he did not want no
housekeeping, that a plain servant the same as he would of done for him, and as
she had come that he told her that he would give her four pounds a year for
pocket money, and that she was with him a twelve month and that he had given
her twelve pounds, and I cannot see as he is charging her as this, that he
allows her nothing, but she must pay for being there I should think, but,
however, he told me before I left him if I would write to you again, and for
you to write back that he must pay me, then he would pay me the balance of four
pounds and seventeen shillings, and I told him then that that would be nothing
to me for to go and sign a bill of balance for that money, and that I was to
have fifteen pound, and besides wanting to write to you again I suppose he
could not trust me for to receive, that I would receive it without sending to
you again, and you trusting me for to receive the whole, and I told him that
the money was accountable between you and me before you went away, and that in
case I should be in need that I should send to you, and that it had gone so with
me at present that I did want them and that you knew that I wanted them for my
rent and I told him that your sister had been so ill for such a length of time
that I was in need of them, but it was of no use what I said, only as I have
told you above, and we do not know what will become of us and we do believe
that they would of ___ on us before this only for this poor girl being as she
is, and I went to Flint yesterday and told him how it was and he told me handy
enough that the rent they must have, and I complained to him about your sister
that she was as she is and he was sorry for that, and he ordered me to write to
you again and let him know as soon as I
could, for I would of wrote in the beginning of the week only we was waiting to
if your sister would alter in some way or other. I am obliged to write this in the room with
her for I daren’t not go from her and I daren’t read the whole for her for she
is so bad, so I must conclude for the present but we hope to hear from you as
soon as we can and indeed you must forgive us for not paying the postage for we
cannot at present .
So all your brothers and sisters joins in love to you both
and that they are all well in health. So
you must except [sic] the same from
Your dutyful [sic] father and mother,
Robert & Sarah Benjamin
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