Bagillt
June 13, 1856
Dear John,
I take the pleasure of sending once more a few lines to you
for the fourth time unanswered and I cannot think what have we done to you that
we cannot have a few lines from you to know how you are altogether, and also
how you get on, but am in hopes that you
are all well as these leaves us fairly indifferent but very troublesome indeed,
for I myself has been for many weeks past very ill indeed as I have stated in
my letters before; so ill that I never was so in my life before, and also your
mother had been for many weeks a little before that as I have stated to you in
my former letters, and cannot think but
you must have received them and never received an answer to as much as one of them. Therefore you might think that it might cause
a great deal of uneasiness to all of us.
And another thing that you must be so kind as to send a
letter before to Mr. Gleave and also to Mr. Gardner of Holywell and never
saying a word about neither father nor mother in neither of them, for we sent
your sister Harriet to both places to see and know how you all were, and as we
are so anxious of seeing the beginning of every week for to get to know about
the mail coming in expecting to hear from you altogether, but never nothing
this seven month back, and it is getting far in June and on the 30th
of June our rent is and that, as I have sent before, that we shall owe Mr.
Faulk a year and a half ‘s due to him, and he has been here different times
like a wild man about his money and how is he going to have it and says that he
won’t wait no more. And dear John you
know very well that we have not the means of paying them. And as you brother Edwin sent in his last
letter of the nineteenth of November that he should send again by the beginning
of the new year again and money to pay our rent and if he could have his money
sooner he would send sooner, and I was obliged to show that part of the letter
to Mr. Faulks for to make him easy with the present then and how he out of it
very much ___ that we don’t hear from you, not nothing, for the year and a half
is a deal of money that is 24 pounds a year it makes the year and a half as you
must know 36 pounds and as I was obliged to take the whole place for to get the
license into the house it caused the rent to be very high and the rates also
and now we were thinking to try to get the spirit license in July next here and
then our license would be less, and also I could give up a part of the house to
Mr. Faulks for to be let and it would draw our rent down to about fifteen
pounds and also the rates would be divided.
It would of been many pound between all in our way in a year and could
have the same place for to do business the same. And I have to tell you that if our rent had
been settled how it would of been all well we think, but howsomever we are
afraid ere you receive this that it will be the other way with us, that
everything as we have about us will be separated and us thrown of the promises
and then we have no place to receive us but to go to the union workhouse. And we are thinking that which you hear that
you will not like it and I can assure you that we have no place else to go when
we have done here.
And as we can understand from Mr. Gleave that you brother
Edwin has left you and gone to do business for himself and that you must say in
your letter that you thought that he would do himself good there. We are in great hopes that both you and him
will do yourself a great deal of good and not a little, for as I am writing
this letter to you in this house for this one time again the same as all the
rest since you are in America, and if the Lord shall grant for me and your
mother to live a little while longer and have to write to you again, it is the
Lord as knows where we shall be when we write, for we cannot tell and as we do
not receive nothing from neither of you.
We don’t know where to send to Edwin at all and we should like to
know.
And your mother says that Elizabeth has forgot all her promises to her before she
left for America, that she never sends nothing to her at all, but we are well
aware that we shall not be here long for to trouble none of you, and also for
you to have to trouble yourselves with us.
And another thing I have to tell you of is that you may
think we must be very troublesome between all things that is we received a
letter from your brother James from London the other day and that he was out of
place and that he should like to come home, and wanting us to send money for to
come home for he had none, and I sent a letter back to tell him that we had no
money to send to him, that he had better try and find the way home the same as
he found the way out of it, and for him to send to us again but we never heard
anything after .
And another thing I have to tell you of is that you well
know what a find spirited woman Nancy ___ was, and her son left here about
three years back for Australia and only heard about once from in that time, but
however as fine and as stout a woman as
she was it has knocked her down at last .
She died and we buried her on last Friday this day week and has left a
great many in Bagillt to deplore her loss, and a very large funeral we had for
her, and if it had been left to Saturday it would of been so much more. Therefore you may think how it is for your poor
father and mother abut you all, for there is neither of us in these days not
near as stout as that woman was a little time back.
Therefore I must conclude for the present with the kindest
respects from all your brothers and sisters to you all and that they are sadly
surprised that you don’t send neither letter nor newspaper this eight or nine
months, only a small sorry paper about a three weeks back, and it is a great
loss in the house I can assure you for it drawed people to the house very much
for there was nothing like it in Bagillt, but with us I must give up for this
time with our kind regard to you all and this from your dear and dutyful father
and mother,
Robert & Sarah Benjamin
….in
hopes to have two or three letters from you before you receive this because I have sent three before this to you
and I am three weeks from the date in receiving your letter what I have
received from you ___ none.
Another scolding...............
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