The Autobiography of Mungo Wm. Paumier,

Gentleman, Clerk &tc.

1796

November 4^th: On that day, I was born in the house No. 13 Phibbsborough, Dublin, and am therefore an Irishman.

My Mother, having had a child next before me and who had received the same extraordinary name of Mungo, after my Uncle, Colonel Mungo Paumier, and which had died, she thought in consequence of being too much wrapped up and confined, she resolved to adopt another course with me, and accordingly although it was winter then, I was daily immersed in cold spring water, and became in consequence very hardy and healthy. Those who knew and nursed me whilst I was young said I was a very fine and handsome child, and my Mother always said that she carried me for 11 months before I made my appearance.

1798

The year of the Great Irish Rebellion, but being then only 2 years old of course I can have no recollection of that terrible epoch.

1800

This year, the Act of Union was carried into effect, which proved the ruin of trade in Dublin and generally injurious in its effects to all ports of Ireland. I was then only 4 years old, so that I knew nothing of politics or business then.

1803

This year was distinguished by what was called “the Rising” in Dublin, or attempt at rebellion, under Lord Edward Fitzgerald, son of the Duke of Leinster, when Lord Kilwarden was dragged from his carriage and cruelly butchered in the presence of his own daughter, and many other persons were killed by the rebels. But this “emute” (as the French would call it) was effectually suppressed in one night and the ringleaders afterwards executed as traitors.

Being then 7 years old I have some recollection of those events, and of seeing considerable numbers of troops marching through our neighbourhood with fixed bayonets, canon, etc. All the roads, canal bridges and locks for miles around Dublin were defended by lofty and strong wooden barriers and guarded by soldiers. There was one guardhouse at Blaquier’s Bridge on the circular road, which was a favourite walk and lounge of the respectable inhabitants of Phibbsboro’, to which we youngsters used to resort to see the troops on duty, especially when changing or relieving the guard. By watching these repeatedly, we became acquainted with the manual exercise, and used to play at soldiers with wooden guns and swords; we had not real ones, which some of the elder boys had.

Mungo drew a picture of the house where he was born, #13 Phibbsborough Lane Dublin. The rest are memories from a holiday he took to the lake district

1806

About this time, when 9 years old, I caught the Small Pock “nationally”. The only way we could account for it was that I looked out of my Mother’s bedroom whilst the corpse of a young man, who had died of that terrible disease, was brought out of a house opposite to ours in a narrow street for burial, the wind, most probably bringing the infection to me. At the same time there was a Dancing Bear under our window, which frightened me considerably by its hideous antics and growls, whilst its keeper beat it with a great stick and shook its chains fearfully. I thought and talked of that ferocious Bear all that day, and when I was in bed that night I screamed out in terror that the Bear would have me. My Mother and Father both rushed into the room and found me sitting up in bed in a state of delirium and high fever, and the next day the Pock appeared all over me.

A doctor was called in who gave me medicine, ordered me to be kept cool, and not to have any stimulant whatever. I grew worse rapidly and soon became totally blind. The Pock was of the very worst description, distinguished by the name of “Confluent”, or where the spots unite and run into large clusters or masses. At length, the doctor said my case was utterly hopeless, and that he could do no more for me.

My Mother, who had some experience in the treatment of that disease with her elder children, asked the doctor if she might give me wine, to which he objected but said “It is of but little consequence what you give him, and you may let him have a glass of wine in a pint of cold water”. My Mother afterwards said to my Father “Though the Doctor has given up all hopes of Mun’s living, I do not despair. Get me some of the very best port wine. I have known it effect great cases in the Small Pock”. My Father hastened to do her bidding, went at once to a large Wine Merchants, “Messrs. Sneyd, French & Barton of Sackville Street”, with whom he was well acquainted, and procured from them a dozen of the very finest old port, which he sent home at once.

As soon as it arrived, my Mother opened a bottle and gave me about half a glass of the wine with an equal quantity of hot water, which I drank up with avidity, and said “Give me a glass of all wine”. This she ventured to do, thinking that nature dictated such a desire to me. The effect was wonderful, the spots or blotches on my head, face, body and limbs, which were previously flat, purple and watery, very soon became plump and ruddy, and rapidly filled up with yellow puss or matter.

She therefore continued to give me port wine in moderation, and warm negus with Naples biscuits, which I dipped in the liquid and ate with evident satisfaction, although still totally blind. Under that treatment I soon recovered, and it pleased God to restore my sight, which thousands have lost in that dreadful malady, although my eyes have ever since been weak and tender. All my beauty, however, was lost and gone, a deprivation which I never much felt or seriously regretted. On the contrary, I have been thankful for that loss and owned it “all for the best”, considering that if I had grown up handsome, I should no doubt have been vain and frivolous, perhaps even wild and amorous, whereas the consciousness of my plainness humbled my spirt, caused me to retire within myself like the snail, and to cultivate the little talents I possessed for the amusement of myself and others.

For some years after my recovery from the Small Pock, I was weak and delicate, and likely, my parents thought, to fall into Consumption. I was always my Father’s pet and favourite, but now became more so than ever, owing to which causes I was not sent to school so early as is usual, but learned to read, write and cipher at home, my Father being an excellent scholar, my Mother a kind patient teacher of her children, and my Sister Fanny being so highly gifted and my general companion, I gradually imbibed a taste for drawing, painting, making ornaments and toys, dancing, singing, literature, poetry and various amusing games.

Thus, my early years were spent in intellectual cultivation, in innocent and useful employment. I was always fond of reading, or hearing read, the best authors, particularly Shakespeare, Young and Milton, whose beautiful language and images I much admired. I was also very fond of the Bible and church services and had so decidedly a religious turn and disposition that my Father used to say that I was cut out for a clergyman and should be reared for the church when old and strong enough to have a perfect classical education.

Erratic as he was in many respects, my Father was very regular in religious observance and ceremonies. He generally attended public worship, taking me with him. He frequently received the sacrament, had family prayer and read the psalms and lessons almost every morning and evening in so solemn and emphatic a manner as to impress us all with a deep and lasting reverence for the scriptures and the church. He likewise accustomed us to reading the psalms and lessons or other portions of the Bible alternately, or verse about, from doing which I acquired his manner and tone so fully that those who heard me read used to say I did so like some pious old minister, and that it would be a great pity if I did not become one in reality. We also studied our catechism, the collects, epistles and gospels, and frequently read volumes of sermons and other religious works, not forgetting the “Pilgrim’s Progress” and the whole “Duty of Man”.

With such an early and decided bias in favour of religion it is not surprising that I should have preserved my respect for the same through all the vicissitudes of my changeful life. For, whatever my circumstances may have been – however prosperous or adverse – however settled and domestic or unsettled and wandering – still I have always had a deep respect in my heart for true religion, and have even continued to “pray in secret” for my own salvation and for “the happiness – both temporal and eternal” of all connected with me.

Notwithstanding this early and decided bias for religion, I was naturally of a lively cheerful and happy disposition, fond of fun and jollity, and often practising athletic exercises and games, and of roving through the fields in quest of bird’s nests, blackberries, haws and flowers in their seasons.

I was very fond of reading voyages and travels, natural history and geography, and occasionally amused myself with one of the best stories of chivalry and romance, which gave me a turn for literary composition; and before I was able to write small or running hand, I penned in roman, or printing letters, a romance entitled “The Purple Rocks”, which my Aunt Prudy (a regular ‘Blue Stocking’ or literary lady) got hold of and showed about as a wonderful production for a boy so young as I was.

I could always draw, from nature or art, landscapes, buildings, shells, fruit and flowers, and paint them properly. I could copy correctly any drawing and could likewise draw and design from fancy and my own invention many curious figures and patterns, amongst which birds with minutely finished feathers, fishes, serpents, monsters and even devils of strange forms, covered with a multitude of scales, or angels with extended wings, were frequently portrayed. Some of these productions of my pen and pencil were seen by Mr Thomas Mulvany, an eminent artist who lived next door to us, who said I had a decided talent for drawing which it would be a pity not to cultivate, and he accordingly gave me some lessons in the art and was much pleased with my copies of his trees, etc., but as he removed to a distance about that time, I discontinued my lessons. My Mother adopted a very extravagant notion on that occasion, thinking that he was jealous of my talent and would not continue to teach me, lest in time I should rival and surpass his own productions.

1808

This year, having regained my natural good health and strength after my narrow escape from death by Small Pock, by living chiefly on bread and milk, I went to school for the first time, though then 12 years old. My master’s name was Cockaigne. He was an Englishman and a good scholar, but very excentric in his habits, and extremely formal and precise in his manners.

I soon became his pet scholar, whom he used to hold up as a pattern to the others on account of my diligent attention to my studies and my consequent rapid progress. Under his tuition, I improved much in reading, writing, ciphering, geography and both in English and Latin grammar, and I continued with him until my Father’s death in the year 1812.

1809

The Jubilee was kept in Dublin to commemorate the 50^th year of George the 3^rd’s reign, when there were most splendid illuminations and fireworks, which pleased me greatly.

My Sister Fanny paid a visit to my Uncle, Colonel Paumier, at his little farm, called Ballahick, near Castletown in the Isle of Man, and on her return brought with her my Brother Charles, whom I had never seen before, and whom my Mother had not seen for 16 years previous.

1811

January 13^th: a Sunday. That day is ever memorable to me, being distinguished by my very remarkable and providential escape and preservation from drowning, as I then fell off a high bank into a deep river, foaming with a winter flood. I was completely submerged or engulfed, but rose again like a cork, my hand accidentally grasping a tuft of rushes, by which I was enabled to extricate myself from that dilemma. I scrambled up the steep and slippery bank with the aid of two friends who had seen me fall in and had thought I should be drowned, for at that time I had not learned to swim, as I did soon afterwards.

I have always accustomed myself to reading the psalms for the day when I was settled at home or elsewhere, and I have generally found some verse or verses in the same peculiarly applicable to any circumstances and requirements at that time, affording me either hopeful promises, consolation or reproof. Referring therefore to the psalms appointed for the 13^th day of the month, I find these passages, most remarkably suitable to the event above referred to, viz:

In the “Evening Prayer” (it was in the afternoon that the occasion took place), and in the 69^th psalm:

1^st Verse “Save me O God: for the waters are come in, even unto my Soul”

2^nd Verse “I stick fast in the deep mire, where no ground is: I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me”

15^th Verse “Take me out of the mire that I sink not: O let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters”

16^th Verse “Let not the water floods drown me; neither let the deep swallow me up”.

That day, being Sunday, after attending church, I took a country walk with two friends, John Logan and William McHugh, up the Finglas Road to Tolka Bridge, where an honest farmer, an acquaintance of John Logan, lived, whom we visited and who entertained us hospitably. After a plentiful lunch, we went down to walk by the side of the river, which in summer was little more than a brook, but was then, in the depth of winter, and after very heavy and long continued rains, swelled to the dimensions of a broad, deep and turbid stream.

When out in the fields, we were always fond of jumping over walls, hedges and ditches. Not far from the brink of the river ran a very wide and deep ditch, over which John Logan leaped. He was some years older than me and was remarkably active and daring. But I was likewise very nimble, resolved not to be outdone, and in some measure expected and obliged to “follow the leader”, whether I fell into the ditch or not. So, I prepared myself for the feat by taking off my great-coat and hat, then going backwards towards the river in order to get a good run for my jump. I unfortunately retreated too far and stepped backwards over the bank (which was 10 or 12 feet above the level of the water) plump into the deep, foaming and eddying stream.

Falling from such a height, I went “souse to the bottom just like a blind pup”, but soon came up again and got out by the means already narrated above. At the time I made that false step I was humming a tune, and when I rose to the surface I continued the same, and then burst out laughing at one of my shoes that had come off in my fall, and was floating down the river and twisting round and round in the various eddies of the stream like a boat adrift on the ocean.

During that occurrence, I never felt the slightest alarm but was perfectly cool and collected, to which I attribute my preservation. For, had I been terrified, I should most probably have thrown up my arms and struggled with violence to save myself, and thereby increased my danger and sunk myself in the torrent, whereas my quietness and coolness enabled me to avail myself of the means of escape which providentially came to my hand.

On getting out and reaching “terra firma”, I commenced dancing and singing and kicked my remaining shoe into the river to follow its companion. I then took off all my wet clothes, putting on my dry surtout ¹ and hat, and returned with my friends to the farmer’s house we had so lately quitted. There the good wife received and treated me most kindly. She placed me on a great settle before a large kitchen fire and made me drink off a large glass of strong whiskey to neutralise and qualify the cold water I had swallowed. She then supplied me with a complete suit of clothes belonging to one of her sons, which were clean and decent although of coarse materials and unfashionable make, and much too large for me. But I was greatly obliged by such accommodation, and walked home warm and comfortable in that rustic attire.

In the meantime, my Father, Mother and family were waiting dinner for me. My Father was very impatient and passionate and swore he would break every bone in my skin, whilst my Mother was secretly fretting and cussing about me, not knowing whether I was dead or alive, for some one had privately informed her that I had fallen into the river, not stating, and perhaps not knowing, whether I had been got out living or dead. In that uncertainty respecting my fate she dared not to tell my Father what she had heard, hoping that all might still be right, so that when I walked in dressed like a country clown my Father was puzzled what to think until I explained the facts to him. Of course he was overjoyed at my extraordinary escape from a watery grave, and did not therefore break any of my bones.

That evening I was engaged to take tea and supper with some friends a few doors off, a widow Davis, her son and two daughters, the youngest of whom, about my own age, I had just begun to feel a tender attachment towards, which was reciprocated by her. I would not therefore be disappointed, but went for fun in the bumpkin’s clothes as my Sunday suit was not dry, and great amusement I afforded them in my rustic garb, affecting the awkward gait and suitable brogue of an Irish peasant. That was the first time I ever wore a neck-handkerchief or cravat, which I never afterwards went without, though I had previously worn only a black ribbon. I was however then in my 15^th year, obliged to shave, so that I began to consider myself a man or nearly so.

Alicia Davis, my first sweetheart, was a pretty little girl, unremarkably fair and very agreeable and affectionate in her manners. I soon grew very fond of her, and she professed to be equally attached to me. About this time she left Dublin and went to reside with an uncle of hers at Balbriggen, a place famous for good worsted stockings, about 15 miles from Dublin on the north road. Her uncle was a clergyman and kept a large school, and my charmer continued there a long time. Doctor Johnson says: “There is no country where Love has not rendered Lovers Poets”, and it certainly was “the tender passion” which caused my first systematic composition in verse, although from infancy I frequently improvised extempore rymes, generally of a jocular or satirical character and tendency. In fact it might have been said of me as it was said of Pope: “He lisped in numbers/For the numbers came”.

I had not, however, committed those ephemeral verses to paper, but began to do so regularly when I became a declared lover, and many a sonnet I then scribbled in praise of “my mistress’s eyebrow” or some other charm. I also wrote many loveletters to her abounding with declarations of unalterable affection, raving wildly about hearts and darts, “the pangs of love”, breathing sighs and dropping tears, without any reasonable cause or excuse, for she was all tenderness herself. That, however, was merely a schoolboy’s first love, which entirely evaporated when I discovered that my Dulcinea ¹ was a jilt, and gave encouragement to others as well as to me.

My first serious composition was the following acrostic on Christmas-day – which I copied into my Christmas piece that year, 1811:

Could I the praise of Jesus sing

His birth in holy verse I’d chime

Redeemer of the world and King

In earth, as in heaven sublime

Since ever was such a joyous day

That day which ne’er shall be forgot

My Saviour in the manger lay

Ah! think, he chose no better lot

Seek not for riches then but grace

Devoid of care contented live

And when before the Saviour’s face

You will be saved if you believe.

1812

January 30^th: My Sister Prudy married William Peter Birmingham, Esq., who took handsome lodgings and gave a very large and expensive wedding party, with an immense cake and abundance of different sorts of wine.

February 20^th: My Sister Fanny married our first Cousin, Dixie Clement Esq., who took at once to the country and gave no entertainment at all.

August 19^th: My Father died of paralysis, caused by a fall down stairs when he fractured his skull by sticking his forehead against a screw of the door handle. I saw him die and felt his loss very severely. He was buried at Clontarf, near Dublin, on 22^nd August. Soon after his decease, my Mother applied to Colonel Handfield, the Commissary General in whose office my Father had been Secretary for many years, hoping that I might succeed him, or at least be employed there as a clerk, but I was considered too young and not sufficiently advanced in learning to be taken into that Government Department, where the duties required men of experience and good qualifications.

I therefore went to a better school than I had previously attended in order to perfect myself in writing, arithmetic and book-keeping, and to acquire a more thorough knowledge of geography and grammar, and there I continued through the years…..

1813 and 1814

… attending closely to my studies with much credit and advantage, gaining premiums for good conduct, spelling, arithmetic, geography, grammar and book-keeping, in which last branch of education I took especial pleasure. There I became acquainted with Alexander McCaul, my dearest and best friend from that time up to the present time, a period of about 44 years, a long time for a friendship to exist. He was then a handsome and elegant youth, younger than me, an excellent scholar, highly talented and accomplished, and a most agreeable companion.

He sometimes visited me at home with my Mother, who admired and esteemed him greatly, but I much more frequently visited him at his residence, 45 Abbey Street, Dublin, where his mother, a widow, and afterwards his sister, carried on with the aid of a foreman an extensive and profitable business as a ladies’ shoemaker, having amongst their customers many of the nobility and some of the richest gentry in Ireland.

Alexander McCaul had two sisters, and one brother. His eldest sister was married to a Mr Hallawell, a very nice and gentlemanly person, who kept a hosier’s shop in Sackville Street, by whom she had several children, the eldest of whom has been for many years past a very distinguished clergyman at Bantry in the County of Cork in Ireland.

Miss Anne McCaul, the second sister, was a very nice, accomplished and genteel young lady, an excellent singer of sacred music, and an expert performer on the piano. Many were the truly happy evenings I spent in their sweet society, conversing frequently upon religious subjects, and singing loudly psalms, hymns and anthems. That family was so truly pious yet cheerful and happy, so affectionate, kind and united, that it was a peculiar blessing and privilege to enjoy their company and converse “ ’Twas like a little Heaven below”. I cannot but be proud of the friendship of so wise, so learned and so good a man as the Reverend Alexander McCaul, who in one of his letters to me some years ago said “You are one of the two or three friends who I hope to keep thro’ life”, and he has acted consistently with that profession ever since up to the present time, never failing to render me assistance whenever I solicited it.

1815

February 16^th: Became a clerk in the office of Messrs. Armit & Borough ¹, the principal Army Agents in Dublin, which situation I obtained through the recommendation of General Sir William Payne Galway, who had been one of my Father’s most intimate friends.

I commenced at the very low salary of £40 per annum, which was all Mr Armit would allow any young beginner, because he had commenced his fortunate career as a clerk in the General Post Office under his uncle, Sir John Lees, the Secretary of that Department. Mr Armit, however, was a thrifty Scotchman, and continued to live respectably upon that small income until he obtained promotion and augmented wages, going on by degrees in the acquirement of wealth until he ultimately became one of the richest men in Dublin and an Army Agent.

Some years afterwards, one of his clerks, a single man, whose salary was £60 per annum, came to him and said “Sir, I hope you will increase my salary, for I find it impossible to live on £60 a year and to keep up such a respectable appearance as is necessary in such a situation”. Mr Armit smiled sarcastically and replied emphatically “Pray, Sir, how did I live upon £40 a year and save out of it ? At present I cannot increase your salary. If the situation does not suit you, you are quite at liberty to look for another”. This was an acknowledgement of his humble origin, which could hardly have been expected from so rich and so proud a man. To compensate me, however, for the smallness of my salary, at first he gave me a job, to be done in the evenings after office hours, which was to check the castings-up and balances of the Great Fair Cash Book, comparing it, item by item, with the daily cash books. That job occupied my evenings for about 3 months, for which Mr Armit paid me 10 guineas as extra.

I entered that military office just at the time when there was extraordinary bustle and excitement in the army, embarking for the continent previous to the Battle of Waterloo, which took place about 4 months after my commencing business there ¹. At that time too, the army retained in Ireland was very strong, for it was not known how soon another rebellion might break out there, as the Roman Catholics threatened to take advantage of England being again engaged in a foreign war, whereby their military power at home was of course greatly diminished. The militias throughout the United Kingdom were then all embodied, the Irish Regiments were sent to England in case civil war should break out in Ireland, when of course, the national troops could not be fully depended upon, whilst the English, Welch and Scotch regiments were transferred to Ireland as more suitable in case of necessity. These marchings and counter-marchings were, of course, productive of considerable trouble and expense, for there were but few, if any, steam vessels then afloat, and there were no such things as railroads thought of then.

A few months afterwards came the general peace, when the army was considerably reduced and the militias disbanded, which caused the Army Agents immense trouble in paying off the troops and giving marching or travelling allowances to the discharged soldiers and to their wives and children. In that business I was much employed, and became very useful and expert, and found it a continued source of excitement and amusement from the vast variety of characters with whom I had to deal, amongst whom I met with many highly distinguished veterans who had been through all the Peninsular Wars, and many of whom had bravely fought and nobly bled at Waterloo, from whom, as well as from the officers who led them on to victory and shared in all their danger and hardships, I heard many true and striking anecdotes of the war.

If ever there was an office peculiarly calculated to teach a youth gentlemanly manners and deportment, that was the one. Military men are always considered the most polished gentlemen (of course there are some exceptions, but “exceptions prove the rule”). Not only was I in constant and intimate converse with such who treat an Army Agent’s Clerk as if they were perfect gentlemen, but I had likewise frequent intercourse with high official persons in the War Office, Treasury, Bank of Ireland and also with many noble lords and ladies who used to visit Mr Armit on business, some of them being Colonels of Regiments in his agency, others only his private friends.

Mr. Armit himself was a most truly finished gentleman, and so was his nephew, Mr. Edington, who afterwards became a partner in the firm. In such a school of politeness, I acquired that ease of manner in all sorts of society which gives me even now (reduced as I am) the distinctive title of “The Old Gentleman”.

1816

Continued in the same situation, having my salary increased £5 per annum, which was to be done every succeeding year. Living with my Mother and spending my evenings in the society of my young friends and their accomplished sisters, my time passed very happily.

1817

This year my Brother John and I were both laid up with the Typhus Fever, caught from my Mother, who had taken the infection from my Aunt Wetherall. That disease was generally prevalent, and proved fatal to many throughout Ireland that year, and was accompanied by famine amongst the poorer classes, which cut off thousands.

1818

Early this year, my Sister Prudy accompanied her husband, Mr Birmingham, to the East Indies, he having been appointed as Assistant Surgeon to the 87^th Regiment of Foot (the celebrated Connaught Rangers, whose very appropriate Irish motto is “Fauch a Baullah”, the English of which is “Clear the way”). Mr Birmingham was himself a Connaught man, and was therefore quite at home amongst his fellow countrymen. How they comported themselves in India until his death I have fully related above.

This year also was remarkable to me on account of my Brother John quitting Ireland, coming to London, and sailing for South America to join the patriot troops under General Simon Bolivar, the real Liberator of his country, the provinces in South America, then writhing and groaning under the gauling yoke of Spain, who soon, however, shook it off entirely and established their independence. My Brother’s distinguished services in that noble cause I have fully detailed in this little book.

1819

This year Sunday Schools were first introduced into Ireland and commenced operations in Phibbsboro’. I was one of the first to offer, and give my gratuitous services in that good cause as a teacher, and very soon became conspicuous and zealous in that capacity. Being solicited to join the Committee, I was appointed their Secretary, which office I continued to hold with great credit to myself and complete satisfaction to the Committee and subscribers until I finally quitted Ireland in 1825. In that blessed employment of teaching the young and ignorant to read and understand the scriptures, in that holy office of “Feeding the Lambs” with “The Bread of Life”, I spent the happiest and most useful hours of my existence. It is truly said that “He who watereth shall be watered again himself”, for I learned and felt more of real christianity and true religion whilst thus engaged than ever I knew or experienced either before or since then.

Not contented with our labours on Sundays, we very soon established weekday evening schools in order to teach our scholars the more useful and practical branches of secular education, writing and arithmetic, which were not taught in the Sunday School. For want of sufficient funds, we were not able to pay a regular master and mistress to perform that duty, to compensate for which deficiency I undertook that troublesome office myself, and long continued the same with the aid of some pious ladies to attend to the girls.

You, my children, can have no correct idea of the difficulties and obstacles we had to contend with and overcome in carrying on this “labour of love”. All our scholars were poor, ignorant Roman Catholics, who had never had instruction of any sort, religious or otherwise. Although they were generally anxious to learn and their parents willing that we should teach them, their priests forbid them coming to the Protestant schools, harshly reproving and severely punishing their parents for permitting them to do so, and threatening to excommunicate them if they continued the same.

In spite of all this, the children would come to us whenever they could do so, but they were most awfully ignorant and stupid, and at the same time very wild and unmanageable, besides which many of the poor neglected creatures were very ragged and dirty. It therefore was no very easy or enviable task to teach them anything. Still, there were some very pleasing exceptions who received our instructions with avidity and efficacy, and who rapidly improved in learning, manners and appearance, which gave us encouragement to persevere with the others.

1820

This year brought into our neighbourhood the family of the Wades, consisting of 9 individuals, namely:

1^st Mrs. Wade, the widow of a clergyman, possessing a handsome private income and living most respectably. She was a perfect lady in manners and appearance, and a very talented and accomplished person, remarkably cheerful and agreeable in company;

2^nd Miss Wade, her sister-in-law, a truly pious woman, very plain in every respect but always affable and pleasing in her manners;

3^rd William Maxwell Wade, Mrs Wade’s eldest son. A fine, handsome lad then about 17 years old, apprenticed to surgeon Daniel, a cousin of his own and a very clever practitioner. Mr Wade was a lively, high-spirited and frolicksome young fellow, peculiarly cut out for his profession in which he made great progress and at length took out his Diploma in London and became an eminent doctor in Ireland¹;

4^th Jemima Matilda Wade, Mrs Wade’s eldest daughter. A most beautiful, fairy-like creature, adorned with every feminine grace and gifted with extraordinary talents for music, singing, drawing, dancing etc. She was then about 15, and though so young and buoyant in disposition, she was quite a woman in manners and conversation;

5^th Frederick Wade, her brother, a pale and delicate looking boy about 12 or 13 years old, very arch and clever, and an excellent scholar, who afterwards entered the church and held a good living in Staffordshire the last time I saw or heard anything of him, in 1838;

6^th Charles Wade, a handsome, elegant and interesting boy, then about 9 years old and so advanced in classical and scientific knowledge even then as to be fit to enter college had he been old enough. Gentlemanly and accomplished as he was, he would not wait ‘til he should be old enough for college, but taking a strange fancy for sea he resolved to be a sailor.

In order to cure him, if possible, of that propensity, his friends permitted him to indulge it and sent him out on a trial voyage in a merchant ship under a captain whom they knew, directing him to give Master Charles such a dose of hardship as might effectually sicken him of a seafaring life. Accordingly, he was made to scrub the decks and do every menial and dirty office. On the ship’s return to England, he made his escape, made his way to a cousin of his, a Mr Robinson, clerk at a large timber wharf in Pedlar’s Acre, who was much surprised to find that instead of being disgusted with a sailor’s life, he declared his determination to get into the navy.

With that view, he sought out Lord ____ ², captain of the “Valorous” Man of War, then fitting out and preparing to go to sea. He called at Lord ____ ‘s house one evening in his sailor’s clothes and asked to see his Lordship. The servants repulsed him roughly, saying that his Lordship could not see him then as he was at dinner and had a large party. To this Charles replied “Then I’ll wait ‘til his Lordship is at leisure”. The servants, however, wanted to turn him out, but he would not go. An altercation ensued in the hall, which Lord ____ hearing, came out to know what was the matter.

Charles advanced politely, making his best bow and saying “I have taken the liberty of calling upon you my Lord, hearing that your ship the “Valorous” is now fitting out, to know if you can give me a berth on board of her. Lord Huntingdon looked at the boy with astonishment and admiration, and was much struck with his handsome and intelligent features, and still more so with his noble bearing, elegant manners and correct mode of speaking, and said to him “You are a fine lad, but very young. What do you know about navigation ?”. “Why please your Lordship”, said Charles, “I have been out for one voyage to America”. Lord Huntingdon smiled and said “you could have learned but little in one short voyage”. He then asked Charles several questions about different parts of the ship and rigging, as well as about the compass bearings, course and mode of sailing according to the winds, to all of which questions the young sailor replied promptly and correctly, so as to prove that small as his opportunity had been, he had profited by it, and learned much that was useful in a very short time.

“Well my lad”, said his Lordship, “I think you would make a good sailor. I don’t know exactly whether my ship has completed her complement, if not I will give you a berth on board of her”. In order to apologise properly to his company and to account for his protracted absence from table, he took Charles in with him, introduced him to his friends, explained his object and qualifications, and seating him beside himself made him partake liberally of all the luxuries which abounded no doubt at the table of a nobleman when entertaining a large party.

True to his promises, the sailor Lord found a berth in his ship for Charles Wade, who was soon appointed as a Master’s Mate, eligible to an appointment as a Midshipman, which he speedily attained to, and having distinguished himself greatly in Portugal, leading the marines in some signal actions under Lord Hay, he was promoted again to a Lieutenantcy and at the same time was made a Captain in the Portugese service. His brilliant career was cut short in a desperate engagement with pirates on the coast of ____ in which poor Charles was killed, being then 1^st Lieutenant on board the “Samarang” ¹;

7^th Annie Wade was a nice pretty little girl about 7 years old;

8^th Betsy Wade, her sister, was a wild, rackety child a year or two younger;

9^th Thomas Wade was then a mere baby, 3 or 4 years old. He afterwards became a surgeon in the navy. I do not know whether he is living or dead now.

With this delightful family² I spent much of my time for the next 3 years. They were all remarkably fond of me, especially the lovely Jemima of whom, being so young, I had no tender or serious thoughts until she herself commenced a courtship by squeezing my hand under the table and pushing her elegant little foot expressively upon mine. Under such circumstances, I must have been more or less than man to have repulsed her innocent advances, or withheld my fond attachment from so truly charming and captivating a female as she was then. I accordingly became passionately fond of her. Her youth and apparent innocence rendered her attentions to me little worthy of notice by her mother, aunt or brothers, so that she would actually sit on my knee and play with me with as much childishness and simplicity outwardly, as either of her little sisters.

She possessed a most angelic voice and was taught singing and the piano by a very eminent musician, a Mr Walsh, who was extremely proud of his pupil and said she would make an exquisite singer. But her performances, both vocal and instrumental, were almost exclusively devoted to sacred compositions. Like Miss McCaul, she seldom sang or played anything but psalms, hymns or anthems, in which I and all her family used to join with heart and soul, to the great delight of her mother and aunt. We often went to church or chapel together, where her splendid voice was admired by all who heard it.

She used also to accompany me and her aunt to the Sunday School where it was really delightful to see so refined, so lovely and so accomplished a creature condescending to teach the poor, ragged and ignorant girls around her to read and comprehend the meaning of the scriptures. On such occasions she seemed like some guardian angel come from Heaven to impart “glad tidings” to sinners.

1821

George the 4^th visited Dublin, where he was most affectionately received by his Irish subjects. On the occasion of his public entry into that city, I paid £1 for a garret window in Sackville Street, the grand scene upon that day, and thought less of that pound then than I do now of one penny, so different are my circumstances now from what they were at that time. I likewise witnessed His Majesty’s embarkation at Kingstown, which was a most splendid sight indeed.

During the royal visit, my Aunt, Mrs Colonel Paumier, and her son, my Cousin Mun Noble, were in Dublin. I drew up a memorial from her to the King, claiming a pension as an officer’s widow, which I dropped into His Majesty’s carriage whilst waiting for him at the Viceregal Lodge in the Castle, Dublin, which I was enabled to do, as I had always then the “Privilege of Entré” there in my demi-official capacity of an Army Agent’s clerk.

To that memorial, she received a reply from the King stating that His Majesty regretted to find that she was not entitled to a pension as her late husband, Lt. Col. Paumier, had sold out entirely. Had he retired upon half-pay, she would have been eligible to receive the pension. All that she knew very well beforehand, but hoped to catch the monarch in a generous mood, when he might have ordered her some handsome gratuity, but George the 4^th was not in the habit of exercising his royal liberality in that way.

My Cousin was then a boy only 9 years old and appeared to be warmly attached to me.

Continuing still in the office of Armit & Borough, I was this year promoted to the situation of Deputy Cashier in consequence of the death of young Bagot, the previous clerk, who was a sort of relation of mine, through one of my aunts marrying an uncle of his. It was rather curious that there was another clerk in that office, a Mr McKenzie, who was also related to me, he having married a Miss Bagot, one of my cousins.

In that Situation of Deputy Cashier, the whole of the money passed through my hands, to the amount of at least £100,000 per month (or above one million annually)! And so, as I occupied that post for about 3 years, the sum which passed through my hands within that period was at least £3,600,000 and most probably four million pounds. This may appear extravagant and false in your estimation, but I assure you most solemnly that it is perfectly true.

About the 24^th of every month, my employers received from the Treasury, drafts on the Bank of Ireland for the monthly payment of the troops in that Country, amounting on the average to one hundred thousand pounds. Those drafts I took to the Bank, in payment whereof I received a certain quantity of £1 and 30s. bank notes, a certain portion of £5 and £10 notes, some £20, £30, £50 and £100 notes, with Bank Post Bills made payable to particular parties, and the balance in £500 notes, 40 or 50 of which I have had loose in my breeches pocket at a time.

The small notes we used to have in whole books of £100 each. These we used to pile up, one book across the other, in heaps 2 or 3 feet high. I then took as many notes as were required for one particular remittance whither to the headquarters of a regiment or to any of the outposts or detachments, which I cut across with a large, strong and sharp knife made for the purpose. The first halves of each parcel I made up in a large cover of cartridge paper, together with a printed form of a remittance letter to be returned with an acknowledgement by the officer to whom it was sent when the second halves were sent on. Those parcels, when so made up and directed, I took to the War Office, where they were franked by E Connor, the 1^st and principal clerk there. I then took them in a large blue bag to the Post Office, having a servant to carry the same. In case the Mail Coach was robbed, no uncommon occurrence in Ireland in those days, we could always recover the amount from the Bank on handing them over the other halves of the notes stolen, and this we often had to do.

1822

This year, I was accused by one of the clerks in the Bank of Ireland, a Mr Palmer, of receiving from him on one of those occasions a £10 note too much, which I certainly never did. But, he obstinately persisted in his assertion publicly in the bank, when I called him a liar and a coward openly, and afterwards wrote him a most intemperate letter, calling upon him for an apology for his false charge against me or otherwise to give me the satisfaction of a gentleman, else I should post him as a liar, a scoundrel and a coward. He took no notice of that letter, but the Bank of Ireland then entered an action against me on a Civil Bill Process for the £10.

My employers, fully convinced of my integrity, employed their own solicitors to defend me. The trial came on in the County Court before Serjeant (afterwards Judge) Torrens, who, to please the bank directors, charged the jury so unfairly that they found a verdict against me, my counsel, Mr Dunne, being a regular noodle. I immediately appealed to the Court of King’s Bench against that decision. Mr Philip Crampton, then a young counseller (now Chief Justice of Ireland), came forward and offered to plead my cause gratuitously, thinking I had been very unfairly dealt with. This he accordingly did, and gave the Bank of Ireland a pretty severe dressing for bringing such an action against me. The judges there, however, confirmed the decision of the inferior court, but the bank was ashamed to take any steps to enforce payment from me.

They, however, instigated Mr Palmer to file a Criminal Information against me for “Provoking him to fight a Duel”. Of that action I took little heed, thinking it would not be proceeded with, which it was to a certain extent. But I suffered judgement to go by default, not having pleaded, in consequence of which a Writ of Capias was issued against me, and I was arrested by a Sheriff’s Officer one evening on my way to the Post Office with the remittances. They were, however, very civil and allowed me to proceed and deposit my parcels in the Post Office. I then accompanied them to the Sheriff’s Prison, where I was locked up for the first and only time in Ireland, sending word to Mr Armit by the servant of what had occurred. My confinement, however, was but temporary and brief (only two days), until I could provide security that I should appear in the Court of King’s Bench to receive judgement when called upon to do so. So soon then as I got our landlord, Mr Birch and another party, Mr Murphy, to become my sureties, I was liberated, and glad enough I was to get out of that dismal and uncomfortable place.

Whilst I was in prison, I was greatly surprised and flattered by a visit from Mr Armit himself, for it was a mark of great favor and regard in so rich and proud a man as he was to condescend to visit one of his clerks in a prison. In coming through the dark dirty back streets which led to my place of confinement, the old gentleman had unfortunately fallen down. His white waistcoat, trousers and coat were poluted with mud, which I wiped off with a clean towel, and he bore the misfortune with true philosophy and without one angry word or reproof towards me, the cause of his mishap. He came to console me in my trouble and to offer me any assistance I might require, but the next day I was at large and attending to my duties as usual. Mr Palmer, or rather the bank directors never pressed for judgement against me, but agreed to drop all proceedings on my paying part of their costs, which my employers did for me.

That unpleasant affair, however, annoyed and unsettled me greatly, and first suggested the idea of a long journey to amuse me, which was still further rendered advisable by the manner in which I was treated by Mrs Wade, and by her lovely daughter, Jemima, at her mother’s instigation.

The fact was that Mrs Wade had become warmly attached to me herself, and wanted me to marry her, saying that Jemima was too young and would not suit me so well as herself, but to such arguments I turned a deaf ear. Therefore, to get her daughter out of the way, the mother gave encouragement to the attachment for Jemima professed by a young man, William Carlisle, a fellow apprentice of William Wade. He was an East Indian by birth, possessed of some property, a very great fop and fool, as his subsequent conduct proved. He was very dark in complexion with a meagre face and figure, his only recommendation being that he was fashionable and extravagant in dress and manners, and was very gallant and a good dancer.

At first, he was an object of absolute ridicule to Jemima, but by degrees she became more reconciled towards him, at the suggestion of her subtil parent who at length persuaded that lovely and gifted little fairy to marry that mere wooden doll, for whom she had no affection. Although her mother said she was too young for me, she did not think her too young for him. The loss of Jemima’s friendship and affections (for I know she loved me) grieved me deeply, though I would not show it, and instead of transferring my attentions from the daughter to the mother, I took an actual dislike to her and refrained from visiting the family as I had long been accustomed to do.¹

Miss Wade, the aunt, was also, I believe, tenderly attached to me and would willingly have married me, but, although I esteemed her greatly for her excellent qualities, I could feel no warmer sentiments towards her than a very sincere friendship, always considering her rather in the light and character of a nun (so sanctified and demure was she) rather than as an eligible wife.

1823

Influenced by the foregoing events, I resolved to try the effect of travelling to divert my mind from dwelling too much upon those disagreeable subjects, which I was the more disposed to do in consequence of my Cousin, Susan Clement, having made me a present of £100 which I did not know what to do with, being a single man living with his mother and having settled employment, a good salary and excellent prospects. For had I continued quietly where I was then, and lived in that employment until now, there can be no manner of doubt but that I should now have been a wealthy man, and perhaps even a partner in that house where I should now have been engaged for above 40 years.

Knowing how much I was esteemed by my employers, and how very useful I was to them, and at the same time thinking it unlikely that they would spare me and grant me leave of absence even for a week, I very foolishly ventured to start off without asking leave, sending a note to Mr Armit stating that “important family business rendered it necessary for me to go over to England for a few days, and hoping he would kindly excuse my short absence”. Supposing that excuse would make all things right, off I set with a light heart to pay a visit to my Cousin, Mun Noble, at his residence in Egremont, Cumberland. I went by steam packet from Dublin to Liverpool, never having been at sea before and being perfectly free from sea-sickness on my first voyage, of course as a cabin passenger in those days.

I enjoyed it greatly, and when I landed at Liverpool I was equally astonished and gratified on seeing the many capacious and splendid docks and warehouses even then in existence in that large and prosperous town (and what must they be now after 33 years of improvement and increased commercial intercourse), crowded with a multitude of large ships and valuable goods from all ports of the habitable globe. The large, commodious and well regulated markets likewise excited my warm admiration, and I was particularly struck and pleased with the neatness and cleanliness of the Lancashire Witches, in their nice little white jackets and black petticoats, who attended the stalls there, so very different from the dirty, slovenly females I was accustomed to see in the Dublin markets. Everything was new and agreeable to me, and gave me a favourable impression in favor of the English habits, customs and people, which was increased and confirmed the more I saw and the further I went.

Putting up at the Head Inn, the Saracen’s Head in Dale St., because from thence started the coach I was to proceed by, being hungry after my voyage, I called for bread and cheese and ale, which the waiter brought directly. When I said “Where’s the butter please”, “Butter, Sir! Butter Sir!” said the waiter, in astonishment. “Yes, butter, to be sure” said I. “Do you suppose I am going to eat cheese with dry bread ?” Of course he brought the butter immediately, and stood staring with wonder, whilst I spread it thickly on my bread, as is the invariable practice in Ireland.

In my journey from Liverpool to Whitehaven, I passed through Westmorland and the whole of the Lake District of Cumberland, and, it being then the height of summer, I was highly delighted with the splendid scenery, particularly Windermere Lake, which is very extensive and beautiful indeed, especially near the picturesque little village of Ambleside. The stage coach travelled for miles along the margin of that Lake, in whose placid waters the verdant hills, the leafy trees, the bold rocks and the sweet little islands were faithfully reflected together with the splendid “blue, etherial sky”, and the fairy-like little boats gliding over the smooth surface.

In Cumberland, the character of the scenery was more varied. Some of the lakes were soft and gentle in their aspect, whilst others were wildly grand and imposing in their features, surrounded with lofty and rugged mountains, and craggy rocks, whilst others were embosomed in soft hills covered with trees. No wonder that such scenes should inspire a talent for poetry in those who dwell amidst them.

On reaching Egremont, I was most joyfully received and most warmly welcomed by my Cousin and his truly hospitable mother, who did all in their power to make me happy and comfortable, taking me to see all the most admired scenery around them, especially the celebrated Lake of Buttermere and its neighbour Crummock Lake, on which we had a boat to take us to the stupendous waterfall of Scale Force where the stream comes down in one broad sheet from a rock about 100 feet in height.

My Aunt, Mrs Colonel Paumier, was always an excellent cook, and taxed her ingenuity in that line to pamper me with some of her delicious home-made dishes, every day varying the same and adding her exquisite pies and puddings. This luxurious diet, to which I had not been accustomed, together with an unusual quantity of wine and spirits, which she and my Cousin insisted on my drinking, brought on an attack of rheumatic gout (the only one I ever had in my life) which settled in my leg and foot and totally disabled me from walking for several days.

In this dilemma, I wrote to my employer, Mr Armit, in Dublin telling him I was unable to travel and sending him a doctor’s certificate to prove that fact, and hoping to be soon better and return to my duty. I received an answer telling me that my situation was filled up and that I need not hurry myself home. This was a thunder stroke to me, but still, I flattered myself that on my arrival in Dublin I should soon be able to put all to right again and to resume my post and occupation.

In that expectation I was unfortunately disappointed, for Mr Armit would not reinstate me because I had been “absent without leave”, a very serious offence in a military establishment which could not be overlooked or excused, least a bad example might be followed by others. This necessity he much regretted as he liked me much and would have put me forward advantageously. But, having once dismissed me for such a fault, nothing could induce him to take me back again. This he declared, almost with tears, to a gentleman of rank and property, a friend of my Father’s who waited upon him and endeavoured to obtain a reversal of that harsh sentence, as did also my kind friend, Counsellor Crampton.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune”

Had I steadily continued my employment in that excellent office, there can be no doubt but that my fortune would have been made.

Having thus foolishly sacrificed such advantages, and being unable to get another situation in Dublin to suit me, I began to think of coming to London, to cut out fresh fortunes in some other line, or to follow up the same in a better sphere of action.

With this view, I set about preparing myself for other occupations by the diligent study of other branches of education. I therefore placed myself under the tuition of a distinguished scholar of Trinity College Dublin, a Mr Jephson, who afterwards became a Doctor of Divinity, a Fellow of that University, and I believe even Provost of the same. Under his auspices, I re-commenced my study of the Latin language, in which I made rapid progress and was soon engaged in translating into English the “Bello Gallico”, or Gallic War, of Julius Caesar. At the same time, I followed up my study of the French language, without the assistance of any tutor, and translated into English several books of “Telemache” (or Telemachou), a most beautiful and interesting work. I likewise resolved to perfect myself in the critical knowledge of English grammar and studied deeply the larger edition of Muny’s excellent work on that subject, and his English exercises, aided by the key to the publication.

Not content with these branches, I applied myself most seriously to the acquirement of scientific knowledge under the able tuition of a most celebrated Professor of Mathematics, Mr William McMinany, who had been the Mathematical Master of the Royal Hibernian School for many years, with whom I commenced the study of algebra, Euclids’ elements, comprising geometry, trigonometry, plane and spherical, conic sections, etc. I likewise applied myself to acquiring a knowledge of geography, the use of the globes, the construction of maps, astronomy, navigation, mensuration or surveying, and fortification and gunnery, all which I found to be quite easy and agreeable instead of difficult and irksome, as most persons consider them, and my rapid progress in those studies afforded the Old Gentleman, my tutor, the greatest pleasure and pride. My reasons and object in acquiring a knowledge of these useful branches of education were my intentions of trying for employment in different lines should I fail in one or more when I should get to London.

Those objects were: first, to become a missionary to the Jews, and to join my dear friend, the Reverend Alexander McCaul, in that pious work at Warsaw in Poland, where he had been stationed for some years with his family, and had been very successful in converting many Jews to Christianity. I kept up my correspondence with him whilst there and he was very desirous that I should go out and aid him in so doing.

Secondly, in case I should not succeed in my first object, I meant to “memorial” the King, George the 4^th, for an appointment in some government office or department in London, Dublin or any other part of the United Kingdom, or even in any of the most distant colonies, on the grounds of my strong claims to consideration and remuneration for the long and faithful services of my Father in government employ, my Uncle, Lt. Col. Paumier, in active foreign and home service, and of my other uncle, General Twentyman, and the fact of his having expended 5000 Guineas in the purchase of his commission. For all which, I should not claim any pecuniary recompense or equivalent (though justly entitled thereto) but only some office under government where my zealous services would merit and repay the salary I might receive.

Thirdly, in case I should likewise fail in that object, I meant to call upon Sir Richard Borough, Mr Armit’s partner, for his recommendation, and also on General Sir William Payne Galway, who had procured for me my former employment, to use his influence with Messrs. Cox & Greenwood, the great Army Agents in London, to give me employment in their extensive establishment.

Fourthly, supposing I might not succeed in any of the foregoing objects, it was my intention to enlist in the East India Company’s Service, or obtain a berth in some East India ship, for the purpose of getting out to that country where the Marquis of Hastings (an intimate friend of my Father’s) was then Governor General, under whose patronage I expected to obtain some good appointment, civil or military, and to make my fortune there.

1824

With such encouraging hopes as I have explained above, I continued my studies steadily and made very satisfactory progress therein.

I also visited my Sister Fanny and her family at Cromartin in the County of Louth, where I had been before on several occasions, and afterwards accompanied my Cousin, Susan Clement, in a voyage to the Isle of Man, where her mother, my aunt, resided. There I enjoyed myself greatly in making a tour round the whole Island and visiting every town and lane worthy of notice, mounted on a rough little Manx pony which carried me safely “up hill and down dale”, over wild heaths and mountains. The town and castle of Peel I had seen and visited on my way to Douglas. Castletown and Ramsay I found my way to, with Kirk-Michel and other small places, besides the Point of Age (where I entered and inspected the Light House), and many other striking objects, and felt greatly interested in examining the ruins of castles, churches, etc., and other relics of antiquity.

Having stopped about a week in the Isle of Man, we proceeded by a steam packet to Whitehaven, and thence to Egremont, where we received a hearty welcome from my Aunt and Cousin, and where we spent another week. We then started for Dublin on board a collier ship as we could not get a direct passage by steam. My Cousin, Miss Clement, had the Captain’s cabin for her sole use, and I slept in a sailor’s berth.

I well remember the evening we sailed. The weather was calm, the sky splendidly streaked with crimson and purple clouds at sunset, and the sea gently undulating and reflecting the glorious skies. Our ship was one amongst a fleet of about 50 sail of colliers which had been detained at Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport for some time by contrary winds, but, the wind having now shifted to a better point, they had all taken advantage of it and were coming down the channel in full sail, for it was almost a calm. Before we had been long at sea, however, matters were altered. The wind commenced blowing in fierce and frequent squalls, and the sea became very turbulent. The symptoms of foul weather were rapidly aggravated until it blew a perfect hurricane, and the sea ran mountains high.

The wind drove us towards the rocky shores where we distinctly heard the fearful roaring of the waves and saw the white mountains of surf. In this way we were tossed about all night, but in the morning we were enabled to run into Holyhead, then a very dangerous harbour, as was evident by the wrecks of 3 vessels in different parts, which I saw by mounting the ladders, and which were soon broken up by the destructive power of the waves.

Many other ships, as well as ours, availed themselves of the precarious shelter which Holyhead afforded, but, the wind continuing strong and right against our course to Dublin, we were windbound there for about 3 weeks, hoping every tide for a favorable change to enable us to prosecute our voyage. That tedious delay was very irksome.

In the daytime I went ashore into the little town to market, and there procured, at very low prices, fine fat geese and other poultry, as well as the small but delicious legs of real Welch mutton. I likewise made an excursion across the long and narrow bridge, or dam, which at that time united the islands of Holyhead and Anglesea, through which the ebbing tide rushed with frightful violence, threatening every moment to demolish the strong barrier which partially confined and separated “the waters from the waters”. I also made a toilsome ascent of the very highest rocky mountain in the neighbourhood, on the summit of which I built up an obelisk with loose fragments of rock, on which I placed a stick with a handkerchief as a flag to mark where I had been.

At length, the wind changed and we proceeded without any other interruption to Dublin, where I spent the remainder of that my last year in Ireland, 1824, in alternate study and pleasure. Our landlady, Mrs Birch, who was exceedingly fond of me owing to my zealous and fearless efforts to sustain the existence, extend the influence, and promote the usefulness and prosperity of our Sunday and daily schools, that lady gave large and frequent parties, at which she would always have me.

In the meantime, the beautiful Jemima, then Mrs Carlisle, had disgraced herself and her family by eloping with a Captain Veitch (an intimate friend of her late Father’s, who had actually nursed him when an infant), leaving her silly cuckold of a husband to his fate. He blustered a good deal about it at first, and set off in pursuit of the fugitives with loaded pistols, vowing vengeance. But, when he overtook them and found his wife actually sitting on her seducer’s knee, he began to blubber like a child, saying “Come home with me Jemima and I will forgive and forget what you have done”. “Never, fool”, she replied. “I never loved you, but now I despise and hate you. There is my ring, take it away. I consider myself now as no longer your wife, but place myself under the protection of Captain Veitch”. After this rebuff, the dastardly husband sneaked out of the room with his loaded pistols still in his hand, and without attempting to molest the man who had debauched his wife, or that wife herself, instead of shooting both, in which case he could only have been found guilty of manslaughter and punished by a brief imprisonment. He afterwards enlisted in the East India Company’s service, instead of following up his profession as a surgeon, went abroad and died not long after that.

She, the fair but frail Jemima, after living for some years with Captain Veitch, by whom, I believe, she had several children, she left him (for what cause I know not), became sincerely penitent for her errors, and went to reside with her brother, the Reverend Frederick Wade, in Staffordshire, where she still remained the last time I heard of her.

When she behaved so ill, I naturally ceased to have any regard for her and transferred my attachment to a really lovely, amiable and virtuous young lady, a Miss Russell, who was then on a visit to our landlady, Mrs. Birch, next door to my own residence. She was really worthy of the love, esteem and friendship of the best men that ever lived. Indeed, she was a perfect pattern of true modesty, steadiness, good sense and religion, as well as just admirable for her feminine beauty and grace. She was the heiress to considerable property, whilst I was then without any employment, dependent upon the generosity of my friends, and very uncertain as to my future prospects and line of conduct, and as to whether there would be a necessity for my going abroad or not. Under such circumstances, of course I could not make any suitable proposals to a young lady of such extraordinary pretensions. I therefore endeavoured to conceal my regard towards her, but it was impossible that she or any one of experience who saw us together in company could be long blind to my attachment, which was one of rather deep respect and reverence than anything like obtruding or presumptuous. We used to meet frequently at the Sunday school, she being a most truly zealous and exemplary teacher, as well as a member of the committee, whose meetings I always attended as Secretary, and whose objects and resolutions I, in a great measure, influenced and regulated. We likewise attended the same chapel generally, where her correct deportment and sincere piety were noticed and admired by the wisest and best.

We had but little conversation, seldom touched each other, and rarely even exchanged glances, yet I flattered myself that she was partial towards me, and that if I had been in a position to declare my sentiments openly and to claim the honor of her hand she would not have refused me. In fact, I was given to understand as much by Mrs. Birch and others, but was so unhappily situated that I could not make an avowal of my attachment or expect any marked encouragement from her. Thus matters continued to the end of that year when we had the annual public meeting of the subscribers and friends of the Phibbsboro’ Sunday and daily school, at which my report and speech obtained me great commendation.

1825

I now began seriously to prepare for my departure for England by resigning my office as Secretary to the schools, on which occasion I read a letter from my successor “pro tem”, Mr Johnston, containing a Resolution of the Committee to the following effect:

“Resolved unanimously that we (the Committee of the Phibbsborough Sunday and Daily Schools) have received with deep regret the resignation of our zealous and talented Secretary, Mr M W Paumier, who for several years, and under trying circumstances and obstacles has so ably and satisfactorily fulfilled the duties of his office. We therefore beg to express towards him our sincere approbation for the same, our warmest esteem and our very best wishes for his health, happiness and prosperity, wherever it may be with will of providence to fix his future lot”.

In acknowledgement as so flattering a testimonial, I wrote a farewell address in poetry to the committee, teachers and scholars of that school, together with a profile of myself (a facsimile of the one you have often seen), which was both framed and glazed and hung up in the school room for some years afterwards.

As to Miss Russell, I sent her a little present, or keepsake, through Mrs Birch, being an elegant edition of “Doctor Gregory’s Legacy to his Daughters”, beautifully bound with marginal notes and observations of mine, and a respectful dedication to my lovely and amiable young friend whom I never saw more, but who, my Mother informed me, seemed to grieve for my absence and did not live long.

I collected all the best testimonials I could obtain to establish my character for industry, integrity, experience, ability and correctness of conduct:–

1^st from my late employers, Messrs Armit & Borough, after above 8 years faithful service in their office as a clerk;

2^nd from my landlord, Mr Birch (a most highly respectable man), as having known me from my infancy as steady, diligent and religious;

3^rd from the excellent and truly pious minister, the Reverend B. W. Mathias, whose chapel (the Bethesda) I had attended for many years, as to my regular attendance, devout behaviour and Christian conduct;

4^th from the Reverend A. McCaul, recommending me most strongly to the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews;

5^th from the Committee of our School, as given above; and

6^th from Mr. William McMenemy, Professor of Mathematics, as to the branches of science I had studied under him, and the satisfactory progress I had made therein.

Furnished with such documents, provided with abundance of good clothes, books and other requisites, as well as about £50 in money, I quitted my native home and country, and bid adieu to my Mother and friends on the 25^th January 1825. I sailed from Dublin to Liverpool, where I made no material stoppage, but proceeded across the Mersey to Birkenhead, thence on to Chester, etc., until I reached Bridgenorth, where I spent a few days with my Aunt King and her husband, Major King, and on the 30^th January 1825, I arrived for the first time in London, having come through Oxford, etc., when my heart seemed to expand with joyfulness and hope.

I was greatly struck with the crowds in the streets, in comparison with Dublin, the great number, variety and neatness of the vehicles, and the profusion and splendour of the goods which appeared in the elegant and well lighted shops, as we passed through Oxford St. and Holborn on our way to the Saracen’s Head on Snow Hill, where I stopped that night about 10 o’clock and, hearing the Clock of St. Sepulchre’s close by strike, I guessed it to be St. Paul’s.

Before going to bed, I walked out for a while and found my way to St. Paul’s, Temple Bar, the Strand, Fleet St., Ludgate Hill, the Old Baily, Newgate, the Compter, and Smithfield Market, etc. Then, having had my supper, I went to rest and slept very soundly after my long journey to London.

January 31^st: After breakfast, I sallied out on a voyage of discovery without compass, chart or pilot, and made my way to St. Paul’s again, which I entered and went entirely through from the crypt or vaults below up to and into the very ball itself, and closely inspected the monuments.

I then proceeded down Ludgate Hill and through “Fleet Market”, which was then in existence, the narrowness and dirtiness of which gave me rather an unfavourable opinion of the London Markets. Seeing a bridge (Blackfriars) at a little distance, I visited it and there and then for the first time saw the noble River Thames. Passing over the bridge into Surrey, and seeing a large stone building right before me in the distance, I imagined it was one of the royal palaces and made my way to it, but found to my disappointment that it was only Bedlam Hospital.

Knowing no better, I returned up the Blackfriars Road and back over the bridge to Fleet St., along which I went to and through Temple Bar, after visiting the Temple outside and inside, and old St. Dunstan’s Church, where the curious figures used to strike the hours on a bell.

I then passed along the Strand to Charing Cross and on past the Admiralty, Horseguards, and Whitehall to Westminster Hall, Abbey and bridge, which latter was then furnished and adorned with its alcoves or niches, where the wonderful echo was said to exist. I entered Westminster Hall and visited the House of Commons and the House of Lords, where I would have sat upon the Throne and the Woolsack if I had been allowed to do so.

I then went all through Westminster Abbey and inspected the various monuments of the good, the wise and the brave. On my return, I went into St. James’s Park where I saw St. James’s Palace and old Buckingham House, the scite (sic) of new Buckingham Palace which was then a dull heavy brick building, more like some old manor house than a Palace for Royalty to dwell in ¹. Thus, I passed my first day in London and found out all these things without asking anyone for a direction all the time. Next day I bought a map of London (“The Stranger’s Guide”) at Wallis’s on Snow Hill, which I examined minutely and by which I was enabled to make out a regular route for every following day, so that I soon made myself acquainted with the main features of the town and could readily find my way to every public place of importance. Within one month after my arrival here I knew London better than most persons who have been born and lived all their lives in this vast metropolis.

Not wishing to continue at the Saracen’s Head, I sought out my friend, John Moore, with whom I had become acquainted at Wades’, to whom he was a sort of tutor. He was preparing to go out as a missionary and teacher under the celebrated traveller and missionary in China, Reverend Doctor Morrisson, who was about to found an Anglo-Chinese College at Canton. It was a very curious fact that John Moore was actually born in China, his father being an Englishman, and his mother a native of Portugal. His features were very outlandish and his complexion almost as dark as a mulatto’s. He was, however, an excellent scholar, had passed through Trinity College, Dublin and was a truly pious, humble, zealous and amiable dispositioned Christian, well fitted for the situation and employment to which he was going.

I found him lodging at a Mrs Doroman’s, No. 3 Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury, (which has since been altered to Bloomsbury Street) a highly respectable house and street. There, however, I stopped but a very short time, finding the charges too heavy for the accommodation, viz. half a guinea per week for the use of a little bed (a second bed being in the same room in which Moore slept) in a mean little back garrett, with a privilege of breakfasting only in the parlour, and seeing any friends or visitors there on business, which I had no occasion ever to do. Yet my Landlady charged 2/- [two shillings] per week extra for coals, wood and candles, 1/- per week for my boots being cleaned and for bread, milk, butter, etc. for my breakfast; I found that I was charged most exorbitantly. “This” thinks I to myself “will never do. I must get some quiet and cheap lodging a little way out of town and purchase my own provisions”. This I accordingly did without delay, and pitched my tent with Miss Syers at No. 14 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, where I paid 5/- a week for a very nice, respectably furnished front parlour, entirely to myself, where I found my own fuel and bought whatever I required at its proper price.

The situation was respectable, quiet, open and airy (for at that time there was on the opposite side of the road a large garden and extensive playground, etc. attached to a large boarding school surrounded by a low wall and high trees) and the distance from many parts of town was very moderate. There I consequently felt myself at home and comfortable, and there I continued for several months.

According to the resolutions and plans which I had formed before quitting Ireland, as explained above, I made my first application to “The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews”, enclosing those very creditable testimonials, as described above, and in consequence was directed to attend, with many other candidates, for examination at a general meeting of the committee at their offices, then in Wardrobe Place, Doctors Commons, which of course I did, but failed to be elected because I was so backward in learning. There were just then many young men, students from Oxford and Cambridge colleges, thoroughly qualified for immediate employment as missionaries, coming forward to offer their services, to whom, of course, the preference was given.

My next application was made by memorial to the Duke of York, then Commander in Chief at the Horseguards, fully stating my claim to compensation or an appointment on account of the public and military services of my family and the expenditure of 5000 guineas by my Uncle, the late General Samuel Twentyman, in the purchase of his commissions, etc. To that memorial I had a speedy answer from the Duke of York, not questioning or disputing the correctness of my claim, but referring me to His Majesty, the King. To him, George the 4^th, I then immediately applied by another memorial, stating that I had been referred to His Majesty by the Duke of York, and, had I, at that time, possessed any court or parliamentary interest in my behalf, there can be no doubt but that I should have succeeded and attained my object.

I was soon, however, favored with an acknowledgement of the receipt of my memorial by the King, stating that I would receive an answer “through the Lord of the Treasury”, which I understood to signify that my claim would be granted, either by a pecuniary recompense, a pension or an official appointment. But, after waiting a reasonable time for the same, I applied to Lord Liverpool, then First Lord of the Treasury and Premier, on the subject, from whom I at length received the ultimatum, saying that “there were no funds from which they could advise His Majesty to grant me the required compensation”. This I followed up by a second memorial to the King, most respectfully stating that it was not so much a pecuniary recompense or equivalent for the loss our family had sustained by the expenditure of so large a sum by my Uncle, General Twentyman, as an official appointment, which I consequently required and expected. To that application I had soon a final answer, saying that “the claim was then obsolete and inadmissible, as it ought to have been proferred many years previously”.

Having failed in these, my two first and favourite objects, I applied myself to my third, trying to get a situation in the office of Messrs. Cox & Greenwood, the Army Agents for which my 8 years experience in Armit & Borough’s office, similar to theirs, proved me to be properly qualified. I therefore got from them the then present address of General Sir William Payne Galway, which was “Bure Homage”, near Christchurch, Hampshire, to which I did not write but made a journey, passing through and stopping awhile in Portsmouth, whence I proceeded by a small sailing vessel to Christchurch. During that pleasant trip, we passed a large fleet of war[ships] then exercising off the coast, where the weather, being calm, they had every ray of canvas set, and presented a most splendid sight of at least 20 sail of the line following each other, and all in full sail. We also passed near to the beautiful Isle of Wight and saw the celebrated and dangerous rocks, the Needles, at no great distance.

I readily found my way to “Bure Homage” and had an interview with Sir William Payne Galway, who received me very politely, as the son of his old and esteemed friend “Paumier”, and who at once furnished me with his strongest recommendation to his agents, Cox & Greenwood, which was no slight thing, as he was then Colonel of a Dragoon Regiment, and Army Agents will do all they can to oblige such parties, so that I flattered myself with hopes of complete success there.

Being highly delighted with Christchurch and its environs, I stopped there a few days, and amused myself with excursions along the coast and towards the interior parts of Hampshire, as well as in frequent visits to the very ancient and picturesque old church, in which I found many interesting monuments, and in the churchyard of which I stumbled over others, many of which I copied into a little book like this which I preserved for many years, and in which were many interesting sketches of tombs, crosses, ruins, churches, castles, bridges, etc. One curious epitaph which I found in Christchurch Burial Ground I have ever since preserved in my memory, and it was this:

“We were not slain, but raised

Raised not to life

But to be buried thrice

By men of strife

What use could the living have

When the dead had none

Agree among you

Here we three are one”

I never obtained any explanation of this strange inscription, but I understood it to mean that the bodies or remains of 3 persons, most probably remarkable for their extreme religious or political opinions and conduct, perhaps on the side of royalty, had been exhumed or disinterred by parties of opposite tenents, followers most likely of Oliver Cromwell, as an indignity offered to their memory, which 3 bodies or remains had been re-interred in one heap and grave by their friends.

The first day I stopped at the Head Inn in Christchurch, being then in garb and purse a gentleman at large. The landlady came into the parlour to me with a very low curtsey, saying: “Please, Sir, what would you like for dinner?”. “Well”, said I “I am not very particular, but this fine country air gives me a good appetite, and I think I could not fancy anything better than a very nice rump steak, with any little addition you may think proper”. Accordingly, on my return I was served with an abundant supply of some of the finest rump steak cooked in the most exquisite manner, after which the landlady herself brought me a large dish of what she called “flitters”, but more properly “fritters” or small fried cakes of flour, eggs, milk and currants, covered with powdered lump sugar and rendered still more palatable, if possible, by having a little lemon juice squeezed over them. I don’t think I ever ate so hearty a dinner before, or one I so much enjoyed, for I had come in very hungry, was in rude health after my long journies, voyage and sea air, and was likewise in excellent spirits and full of the highest hopes for the future. That good dinner, I diluted with plenty of fine old country ale and qualified afterwards with several tumblers of very nice rum punch. My tea was also excellent and accompanied with plenty of nice cakes, toast and shrimps, etc., and my supper I made of cold roast turkey, etc., and I retired to a luxurious bed at a reasonable hour.

Next morning at breakfast, I was supplied with an abundance and variety of cold meat, game, poultry, pies, eggs, toast and with superb coffee, tea, cream, etc. In that style I enjoyed myself at Christchurch for two or three days, and to the great astonishment of the landlady invariably ordered the same dinner of rump steak and currant “flitters”, etc.

On my return towards town, I stopped 2 or 3 days more at Portsmouth, being provided with a letter of introduction from my brother-in-law and first Cousin, Dixie Clement, to Lieutenant Tiphook of the Royal Navy, who was then Secretary to the Port Admiral at Portsmouth, requesting him to give me, should I require it, a letter of recommendation to his brother, Mr Tiphook, who had been many years Chief Clerk in the immense establishment of “Lackington – the great Bookseller” at the corner of Finsbury Square, soliciting him to obtain for me employment in that grand concern.

Lieutenant Tiphook received me with much politeness and informed me that his brother was dead, and that Lackington had retired from business some years previously. He then presented me with a note to the 1^st Lieutenant on board the “Victory”, Nelsons last ship, a first rate Man of War mounting 120 guns, then lying in Portsmouth Harbour, fully manned and equipped, and also a pass or order to inspect every part of the dockyard, and of these I very gladly availed myself, as they were things I had long anxiously wished to see. Therefore, taking a boat, I went on board the “Victory”, where I was received with great attention in consequence of the note I brought from the Secretary of the Port Admiral, an Officer of very great importance there. I was most politely shewn over every part of that noble ship, the cabins, gun room, armoury, and touched the brass plate let into the deck, on the very spot where Nelson received his mortal wound and fell, to rise no more on earth, on which circular plate or ring are inscribed the words of that immortal hero on that occasion (the Battle of Trafalgar) so well known and soften repeated:

“England expects every man to do his duty”

I also visited the cockpit, and saw the very spot where he expired, from which I brought a piece of sea biscuit, which I kept as a sacred relic for many years.

I was then hospitably entertained by the officers in the state cabin and, being warmly excited by the thoughts of the truly gallant admiral and the evidence of his heroism which surrounded me, and encouraged by the frankness and attention of the “Hearts of Oak”, whose guest I then was, I volunteered to sing “The Death of Nelson” where he actually died. I either acquitted myself with peculiar expression and emphasis on that occasion, or got credit for doing so as a compliment, for the officers and men absolutely cheered me loudly and drank my health with all the honors, etc.

My next visit was to the dockyard, every part of which I minutely examined, and was highly gratified by the sight of large ships of war on the stocks, the foundry for shot, shells, etc., the huge anchor forges, and the beautiful machinery for sawing, planing and cutting out the block, pullies, sheaths, etc.

My last trip was across the harbour to Gosport, when I went to Haslar Hospital to see my Uncle, Lieutenant Childers Twentyman of the Royal Marines, as stated above.

I had almost forgotten to tell with what interest and admiration I examined the fortifications of Portsmouth (the best and most powerful in England), especially as I had some little knowledge of the science of fortification, and could therefore understand the names, objects and uses of all the different parts, such as the ramparts, the bastions, the curtains, the scarp, counterscarp, glacis, covered way, redouts, bonnets, lunettes, etc., etc. Having followed up the same style of living at Porstmouth as at Christchurch, but probably drinking more of stimulant liquors, as I made acquaintance with a very agreeable person, a German named Ecobard, or some such name, a pianoforte maker from London, who put up at the same Inn as I did, the Black Swan, with whom I sat chattering and drinking much later than usual.

On my return to London, I was attacked with a serious complaint, a general tendency to fever and inflammation and a breaking out of large pimples or boils in several parts of my body, which however I soon subdued and recovered from by copious doses of salts and moderate diet, etc.

Returning to my old quarters in Hercules Buildings, the rent of which I paid for the time I had been absent, I soon became acquainted with your Mother, then Phoebe Gargrave, a lively, healthy, hearty girl about 16 years of age, to whom I speedily grew much attached, and who became the frequent companion and solace of my otherwise solitary hours, as she lived in the same house with me. This attachment was mutual and gradually ripened and increased until we became united.

In the meantime, I made my intended application to Messrs. Cox & Greenwood, backed by the very strong recommendations of my kind friend and patron, General Sir William Payne Galway, and Sir Richard Borough, Mr Armit’s partner. But all in vain, Cox & Greenwoods answer being that “on the necessary reduction of this establishment at the peace, they had parted with many of their experienced clerks whom they were bound to take back as opportunities occurred, and of course they could not make room for a stranger” however well qualified or strongly recommended he might be. This was a settler for me, the justice and propriety of which nobody could reasonably dispute.

I now therefore again turned my attention to my fourth object, that of getting out to India, although I found that the Marquis of Hastings, who had been Governor General there, had resigned that appointment and was then in London, rather in difficulty and disgrace with the Government, owing to some mismanagement or misunderstanding about “the Deccan Prize Money”, although no one suspected or accused him of any selfish, secret or mercenary object in his conduct. I therefore resolved to solicit his interest with and recommendation to influential parties in India in case I should go there, that I might, through such means, obtain some appointment, civil or military, as a stepping-stone whereby I might be enabled to proceed to ultimate rank, riches and happiness.

I accordingly wrote most respectfully to the Marquis of Hastings, reminding him of the close intimacy and friendship which had subsisted between him and my Father, as well as with my Uncle, General Twentyman, in proof whereof I enclosed to him several letters of his own to my Father professing the warmest friendship, and others from my Uncle to my Father mentioning Lord Moira (as he then was) as their mutual friend and companion, and on which account I earnestly solicited his interest in my behalf here or in India. But, courtier-like, he never even favored me with an answer, although I wrote again requesting him to return those letters, but he never thought proper to do so, and I much regretted having parted with them in that way.

Now that all my hopes and plans were frustrated, I hardly knew what to do, but, resolved to persevere in efforts to procure employment, I advertised in the Times newspaper for a situation as clerk and book-keeper, offering as a ‘douceur’ one quarter of the first year’s salary to any lady or gentleman who would procure me such an appointment.

To that advertisement I soon had an answer, which speedily led to my procuring the desired post in the counting-house of Davy, Son & Drew, wholesale drug merchants and importers, of Gould Square, Crutched Friars, which I held for about 2 years, and then quitted, not for any fault of mine but because we had a serious disagreement in consequence of their not fulfilling their promise and engagement to me as to the increase of my salary, and as to their allowance to me as commission on realised and paid orders to a considerable amount which I had obtained for them in Dublin.

My salary with them was £80 per annum, the £20 douceur I paid by two bills for £10 each at 3 and 6 months date, which rendered it very easy. It was in the month of December 1825 I obtained that appointment, having spent nearly the whole year in active and anxious pursuit of the different objects I have so lately detailed. My expenses (and those not trifling) being defrayed out of money which I received from time to time from my affectionate Mother and from my Cousin, Miss Clement, who continued to assist me until after she found out that I was married.

1826

This year, I continued in the employ of Davy, Son & Drew, and took so much interest in the drug trade, that I made myself acquainted with the appearance, nature and properties as well as with the names of all the drugs and chemicals most generally used, by spending many hours, after my official duties were concluded in the warehouse and laboratory, picking up information from the men working there and from the use of various tests and experiments. Besides which, I studied with attention the Pharmacopea.

In this way, I qualified myself to become a traveller in the drug trade, and with that object, with the consent of my employers, made two or three journies to Dublin for them, where I obtained several good orders and recovered money long due to them, which they never would have got but for me.

In fact, I could and would have extended their business considerably there and in other parts of Ireland had they permitted me to do so. But they tied my hands and stopped my mouth so as to confine my operations to a very limited extent indeed, lest I should interfere with any of the customers of Messrs. Boileau & Co.¹, wholesale druggists in Dublin, who were considered by them as their best connexion.

For the purpose of carrying and shewing to the best advantage samples of the most important drugs and chemicals, I designed and had made by your Grandfather, Mr Gargrave, (who himself had a good knowledge of medicines) a very handsome Spanish mahogany box or case, with several lift outs, divided into small compartments to contain choice specimens of the several articles. Another part was filled with stoppered bottles, wherein were samples of the most important liquids and the most approved scents and essences, and in a drawer at bottom were a number of small gallipots filled with the extracts, gums, etc. This part, as well as the inside of the top or lid, was lined with crimson velvet, ornamented with gold-coloured silk cord, the bottles having handsome gold labels and the gallipots the same, upon rich crimson glazed paper. Altogether it was a very neat, compact and elegant concern.

That was my first visit to Ireland after settling in London, when I was most affectionately received by my Mother, Sister, Cousin and friends. During my absence, your Mother had been living at her Fathers in Thogues St., Hackney Road, but soon after my return we went to lodge with Mrs. Torns in King St., at the opposite side of the Hackney Road.

1827

Having made another journey to Ireland to receive payment for the goods sold and forwarded last year, and to get fresh orders, I did still more business than before, but on my return parted from my employers for the reason stated above.

June: I therefore quitted them and, having some money of my own in hand, subsisted upon it until I procured another situation, which I did within 3 months by advertising as before and offering the same consideration, one quarter of the first year’s salary. In consequence, I received an answer from Messrs. Bardon & Gray, Wine Merchants, of 35 Crutched Friars, who at the same time had themselves advertised for an experienced clerk and book-keeper, and although they received at least 20 written applications for that appointment (which I afterwards saw and read), they gave me the preference over all those, and agreed to employ me at a salary of £80 per annum, without making any deduction for the allowance I was willing to make.

Messrs. Bardon & Gray had not very long commenced business at that time. I was their first clerk and had therefore to open their books according to my own form and fancy, which I did by first forming a Day Book out of the rough materials given me, then transforming the same into a journal, and finally posting those various items into a Ledger. The Bill Book I likewise kept as well as the Petty Cash and several smaller tributary books. The principal Cash Book was kept by Mr.Gray himself (as Mr Bardon was gone to live at Cadiz, there to carry on the business of buying, barrelling, fining and shipping the Sherry Wines thence to London). Besides keeping all those accounts, I had likewise to make out all the invoices, draw the bills, pay the duties at the Custom House, attend to the landing, coopering, housing, sampling, delivery, dock charges and shipping of the various parcels of wine, etc., and on Saturdays had to collect the various amounts of sales from the customers in all parts of the metropolis, which occupied me ‘til 6 or 7 o’clock every evening, having all the Letters to copy and post.

But, as [if] all that was not enough, I had to stop in the counting-house with Mr. Gray on foreign post nights twice every week (Tuesdays and Fridays), often until 12 o’clock at night, copying his fearfully long letters to his partner, Mr. Bardon, at Cadiz, which I had afterwards to deposit in the post office on my way home, which sometimes I did not reach before 1 o’clock in the morning.

My situation was therefore no sinecure, yet I cheerfully and regularly discharged all those duties for about 7 years. During that time my salary was augmented to £100 per annum, with a promise of further increase. With such an income I was able to maintain myself, my wife and children in real comfort and no man could be more domestic, steady or attentive to the peace and happiness of his family than I was, whilst ever I had the means of providing all their requirements.

1828 & 1829

I continued in the same circumstances, having by that time two children, viz:

William George, born 21^st March 1826, and

Susanna Phoebe, born 5^th April1828.

These 2 years, in consequence of my having kept and balanced the books satisfactorily, Mr.Gray made me a present each Christmas of £5 extra.

1830

The same Arrangements continued. About this time, Mr Gray got married to Miss Amelia Sheen, when he left me for about a week the entire management of the business and, had I been then ill disposed, I might have clandestinely sold off a large portion of their valuable stock of wines, especially as several very considerable parcels thereof were bonded in my name and would only be delivered, sampled or tested upon orders signed by me alone.

An instance of such fraud occurred with one of our customers, Mr Henry Capel, in whose absence his clerk, Mr Odell, forged his master’s signature to several London dock warrants, sold the wines for cash and filled up several blank banker’s checks which were left in his care with Mr Capel’s own signature, in case they might be wanted whilst he was away for various amounts, and decamped with about £500. The same thing I could have done if so inclined, but on the contrary, I had done my duty with integrity to the perfect satisfaction and advantage of my employers.

The morning Mr Gray was married he received from me at Hanwell, where his nuptials took place, an epithalamium, or ode in poetry, upon that happy occasion, which he very handsomely acknowledged by letter a day or two after, saying: “Dear Sir, I received your very clear and flattering verses just as Mrs Gray and I were about to start for Hastings, which afforded us much pleasure during our journey. We are both much obliged for the same, and believe me I shall not forget your kindness upon this occasion. Yours, etc. John Gray”.

Having long since lost the copy (or rather I should say the original composition) of that epithalamium, the only portion thereof which I now recollect is one stanza which ran thus:–

“The time may come - and that ere long

When he who dedicates this song

To those now far above him

May to his proper rank ascend,

When ye’ll not blush to call him friend

But even esteem and love him”

In the month of June 1830 was held the first Public meeting of “The British and Foreign Temperance Society”, which was then instituted and established by a very few philanthropic gentlemen.

I did not hear of that meeting until it had taken place or I should most probably have attended it and enrolled my name as one of the first to adopt the principles and practice of that excellent Society, formed after the example of those, then recently commenced in America whose object was then only “To abstain entirely from the use of ardent spirits, except for medicinal purposes, and to discountenance the causes and practice of intemperance in all stimulant or intoxicating liquors”. But, seeing that an association upon the same principles was about to be formed in Spitalfields, I attended its first meeting and proferred my adhesion to the same, signing the pledge at once.

There was something in the earnestness of my manner or in my apparent qualifications which attracted the particular attention and interest of the committee then formed, of which they insisted upon making me a member. In that capacity I attended all their subsequent meetings, and was very useful to them in framing their rules and regulations, having been for many years accustomed to similar duties and proceedings as Secretary to the Phibbsboro’ Schools.

Not contented with the promulgation of our temperance doctrines in the wide and fruitful district of Spitalfields and Bethnal Green (abounding with public houses and drunken weavers, etc.), we made frequent excursions to other parts of town, to assist in the formation of fresh branches or associations similar to our own, at which we had then to encounter the most strenuous and ridiculous opposition, not only from the publicans and distillers, but from crowds of the lowest characters and confirmed drunkards whom they absolutely bribed with money and drink to enter our meetings and interrupt our proceedings, from whom we often experienced much insult, scoffing, slander and violence, being often obliged to call in the aid of the police for our protection and to expel those refractory parties.

In all our meetings and speeches, we not only authorised but absolutely solicited fair and orderly discussion by those who conscienciously opposed us, against the subtil (sic) arguments of whom we successfully contended and conquered by the force of truth, reason, expediency and justice, gaining many sincere converts to our opinions on every occasion.

At first we had arranged against us, as respectable and obstinate antagonists, the whole force of the clerical, the legal and the medical professions, whom we gradually convinced of the correctness of our reasons, motives and objects ‘til we won them over, one after another, to acknowledge that we were right, and to give us their countenance and support. Being anxious to have an association of the same kind near my home, then in the Hackney Road, we held public meetings for that purpose in the large school room of Middlesex Chapel there, and accordingly formed “The Hackney Road Auxiliary Temperance Association”, of which I became the Secretary and chief manager, which office I continued to hold nearly 3 years when I resigned it upon my removal to Wapping.

There (Hackney Road) as elsewhere, we met with powerful opposition, but soon triumphed over it and rapidly augmented the ranks of temperance. At one of our meetings it was urged against us that although we wished to deprive the poor and the miserable portion of society of the comfort and solace for their woes which they found in the occasional use of ardent spirits, we still preserved for ourselves the privilege and advantage of drinking as much wine, ale and beer as we thought proper to consume. Our answer was that ardent spirits was the monster evil, the very Belzebub of drunkenness, whom we must combat and conquer in the first instance as the arch enemy of mankind; that we only used or allowed the use of other strong drinks in moderation. But, rather than by so doing we should be thought to countenance or encourage intemperance in any shape, we were willing one and all to abandon the use of wine, ale and beer entirely, so soon as we should have succeeded in putting down the abuse of ardent spirits.

Such was the first intimation of a tendency towards teetotalism, which was afterwards advocated by many, nay most, of the original propounders of the moderation principle. I shall even count it as an honor and privilege to have been one of the earliest, most zealous and persevering advocates of that primary movement, carried on against suck systematic and violent opposition as would have sickened, alarmed and deterred many from striving against such winds and tides.

This year (1830), the Spasmodic or Indian Cholera made its first appearance in England. Long before its arrival I had diligently marked its progress, slow but sure, from the East across the Continent of Europe, with the remarkable fact recorded of it everywhere that the drunkard and the profligate were its first and most numerous victims. Therefore, as soon as it actually broke out at Sunderland, I called a public meeting of our association and volunteered giving a lecture upon the Indian Cholera, which I accordingly delivered to a highly respectable and crowded audience. When I had done, my statements, arguments and deductions were denied and controverted by a gentleman present who said it was false to say that the Cholera had broken out at Sunderland as he had just come from there and knew that there had been no cases of it at that place. It was all a foolish and groundless panic, he said, and as to drunkards being the first victims, he rather supposed that spirits would prove one of the best preventatives and remedies for the malady should it ever arrive here.

Those assertions and positions I positively contradicted, referring to the Official Report of the Board of Health for the fact of several fatal cases of Cholera having occurred at Sunderland. As to drunkards, I proved the correctness of my inference from the concurrent testimony of several distinct commissions and medical men, who had been sent by Government to various parts of the Continent where the Cholera was raging before it reached us, who all agreed in asserting positively that those addicted to intemperance and debauchery were in every instance the first to be attacked by that fearful pestilence, and the least likely to recover from it.

On that occasion, I was left almost alone in consequence of another (an inaugural) meeting being held that same evening in a remote district, at which the attendance of the most efficient advocates of the cause was imperatively required. Besides, as mine was only a lecture and not a regular meeting, no material opposition was anticipated. I had therefore no fellow labourer at hand to follow up my observations. But suddenly a gentleman rose and addressed the meeting fully agreeing with my views and arguments, although he had on previous occasions rather opposed us, and he now very pointedly said “No doubt the gentleman from Sunderland, who denies the existence of Cholera there, has a direct and personal interest in doing so, and is probably intimately connected with the coal trade or the shipping houses in that port, and therefore wishes it to be kept from suspicion of contagion and the delays of quantine (sic) as long as that is practicable. So we must not pay much attention to his statements or evidence”. That excellent and timely speech of Mr Palmer settled the business, and on putting the resolution in concordance with my lecture and admonitions as warning to prepare for the visitation, I had an immense show of hands in my favor, and many signed the pledge that evening, amongst whom was Mr Palmer, a very sensible and influential man.

1831 & 1832

Matters continued much in the same state as before, except that instead of continuing in lodgings, I took a house of 6 Rooms (no. 8) in Hackney Road Crescent at a Rent of £30 per annum which I paid, together with all the rates and taxes thereof, for a year and a half from ___ 1831 to ____ 1833, upon which my claim to parochial relief, when necessary, in the Parish of Bethnal Green is indisputably founded.

During the great agitation caused by the Reform Bill, I became a member of three distinct Societies, namely “The National Political Union”, “The Bethnal Green Political Union” and “The Shoreditch Political Union”, in which capacity I attended various meetings and took a very warm interest in the progress of reform.

When the Bill had passed and came to be acted upon, and the new Borough of the Tower Hamlets was formed and endowed with the franchise, I strove to qualify myself to vote by paying up all my rates and taxes within the stipulated period, but was not placed on the register, because I had not then been sufficiently long a housekeeper.

Amongst the new candidates for the office of Member of Parliament for the Tower Hamlets was one Mr. George Offor, who appeared to be well qualified for that post, whose pretensions I therefore most warmly advocated until I heard stories about his previous misconduct, which I felt bound to see either cleared up and removed by him or established by his opponents. I therefore wrote him a letter on the subject fully stating the charges made against him, and sincerely hoping that he would be able very speedily not only to contradict, but entirely to disprove the same. That letter of mine he very unwisely submitted to “the Bethnal Green Political Union”, denying the truth of those accusations by writing to that effect, instead of by his personal attendance. The consequence was that several persons came forward and proved beyond doubt the truth of those charges, which produced a positive Resolution of that Union whereby the Members bound themselves collectively and individually to oppose the election of Mr Offor, as they could not consider him to be “a fit and proper person to represent them in Parliament”. Thus, in thinking and striving to do him good service, I was the unintentional cause of his defeat, as he could not venture to contend against such opposition and therefore withdrew from the contest.

About this time my Aunt, Miss Susan Paumier of Gloucester St., Dublin, died, leaving her property to one of my Cousins, Ball or Bagot, I am not certain which, when I was much disappointed, for I had long indulged the hope that she would leave me something very handsome. All I obtained however was £45 remitted to me by Mr Ellis who was her solicitor, only stating that he had been directed by a person to pay me that sum.

Previous to this, Mr Gray had brought into the office a very nice young lad, William Harrison, the son of another wine merchant who, keeping his counting-house and cellars where he and his family lived, could not get this lad, who was wild and playful, to attend properly to business. He therefore resolved to put him under Mr Gray to be trained to the business and thoroughly initiated in the whole routine of counting-house, Custom House, dock and shipping concerns, all which I taught him by Mr Gray’s orders, little suspecting that he was so prepared in order when competent to supercede me.

The business of Burdon & Gray having increased considerably until they became the chief shippers of sherry wines from Cadiz, or rather Port St. Mary’s, they also required the assistance of another clerk, and accordingly took into their employment a Mr Draper, a most gentlemanly and agreeable companion, but likewise a very sly and artful fellow who undermined me. By his persuasion and example, I was led into more extravagance and dissipation than I had ever before practised.

Every day after office hours, and when Mr Gray was gone home to Clerkenwell, we used to sit down in his office with two or three other clerks whom Draper introduced, to drink port, sherry and other wines, and to eat biscuits, cheese, cakes, celery, etc., etc., and often afterwards he would prevail upon me to accompany them to some tavern or public house to hear singing, etc.

1833

Still living in the Hackney Road.

April 14^th: Mun Noble born. My Cousin Mun Noble came of age, and bamboozled Charles in Dublin who came to me about the month of May, and when he got the situation at Wapping under Mr Barlow we removed to live there rent free, which we continued to do for several months until …

September: Paid a visit to my Mother and friends in Dublin, Charles having given me £50. On my return we quarrelled and parted, when we went to live in Princes Road, Lambeth, where we had a grand jollification at Christmas.

1834

Continued at Bardon & Gray’s until August, when I left them in consequence of a serious disagreement. Charles also resigned his situation and went into the London Hospital, and afterwards to Scotland. The remainder of this year we were in very reduced circumstances, living in Earl St., Lambeth Walk, and in Dimond Buildings, Whitehart Street, Kennington Lane, where our dear little Emma was born.

1835

On the 9^th of February, about which time (having been 6 months out of employment) I obtained a situation in the office of Messrs. Egan, Waterman & Wright, Solicitors, through the interest of the Reverend Mr. Crossman of Brixton Road, whose truly Christian ministry we used to attend in St Mary’s Episcopal Chapel in Kennington Lane, with whom I got acquainted in consequence of a letter which I wrote to him respecting his sermons. Mrs Crossman was remarkably kind to my wife in her confinement, and her very excellent husband, being a friend of Sir Frederick Foroke, Baronet, whose Solicitors Egan, Waterman & Wright were, he recommended me to them, and they engaged me as a copying clerk at the very low salary of 15/- per week. But, in less than a month afterwards finding me qualified to act as assistant book-keeper, they employed me in that capacity also and raised my salary to a guinea per week. With them I continued for above 2 years, keeping all their agency accounts, but did not like the legal profession in which I saw so much unfairness and extortion as to disgust me with it, although Mr Waterman was very civil and kind to me.

In order to eke out a comfortable subsistence for my family, I took a small house in Barret St., Princes Road, Lambeth, where I fitted up the front parlour and opened it as a shop for the sale of sweets, cakes, fruit, toys, stationery, etc., but failed therein for want of sufficient means to carry it on, and had my furniture, etc., seized upon and sold to pay a very small arrear of rent. Just at that time, in the midst of our trouble, my unfortunate Brother Charles paid us his last visit, for we never saw him afterwards. (Emma died in November, aged 8 months)

1836

I still continued with Egan & Co. During this and the next year I became a member of the London Mechanics Institution, then in much repute and use by lawyers clerks, and also of “the Herald Literary Society” who held their meetings at the Herald Coffee House in Catherine Street in the Strand, who made me Secretary thereof and likewise editor of their monthly manuscript magazine containing original essays and poems, etc., by the members who used in rotation to compose and read the same, on which a discussion followed, often adjourned and continued at several successive meetings. My first essay was upon the subject of temperance which, as usual, met with strong and spirited opposition, for, observe and learn if you knew it not before, that lawyer’s clerks are generally remarkable for in-temperance. Nevertheless, after a very long debate, the majority decided in my favor.

We were solicited by another Society such as our to unite with them, which we did under the title of “The Ethical Society”, whose meetings were held close to the Mechanic’s Institution of which most of us were members likewise. Of that new Ethical Society I was unanimously elected the very First President, and also as Secretary after the retirement of J. E. Carpenter (the well known and much admired lyrical poet, author of many popular songs and of a beautiful little collection of his poems entitled “Lays for light hearts”. Latterly he has given in London and elsewhere a very clever entertainment of adventures and observations upon “The Rail, the River and the Road”). He was a most witty and amusing companion and a serious loss to that Society, who also numbered amongst its members that pleasing author Leigh Hunt ¹, and Charles Solomon, the celebrated improvisitore or extempore poet, who favored us on several occasions with specimens of his abilities in that way, bringing in with great cleverness and humour the peculiarities of each person present. After our discussion was over and business ended, those who chose to stop became a sort of Sing Song Club, and had whatever refreshment they thought proper.

1837

Still employed by Egan & Co.

May 1^st: a Total Eclipse of the Sun remarkably distinct & visible. This day, Sunday, my Cousin Mun Noble came to town to make his first appearance at Drury Lane Theatre, the full particulars whereof I have already detailed above.

Not long afterwards, my employers, Egan, Waterman & Wright, said that although they were quite satisfied with my services and had no fault to find with me, they were obliged to dispense with my services owing to fresh arrangements in their office and in consequence of having to make room and find employment for the sons of some of their country clients, which I knew to be actual facts, the “fresh arrangements” being the alteration and increase of the firm by taking into partnership Mr Henry Wright, cousin to the original partner, Mr William Harding Wright, and young Mr John Egan, son of the head partner “of that ilk”, which would necessitate the division of the profits amongst five instead of amongst three partners.

They therefore resolved to reduce their expenses by all possible means, and actually turned off not only me, a new, junior clerk, but likewise several other old clerks who had been many years in their office, meaning to do the chief part of the business themselves, and employing those “sons of their country clients” as articled clerks without any salaries.

The remainder of this year we suffered considerably from want, and should have been quite destitute but for the assistance kindly afforded us by my Mother and the industry of my excellent Wife, who was indefatigable in her labours at brace making, by which she contributed very materially towards the support of our family, now consisting of 6 children. (Henry Charles, born 7^th April)

1838

Early in this year I was employed by Mr Smee, brace manufacturers to “the London Catchanc Company”, living in York St., Hackney Road, where I pasted coloured leathers and cut out fittings, etc., and acted for some time as warehouseman, often working there ‘till very late at nights, for which he only allowed me a very small pittance. My son William, then 12 years old, worked at the same business there also.

April: my Aunt King died.

May: my Uncle Childers died, whose little property my Mother employed me to recover for her. I accordingly obtained a Certificate of his Death from Haslar Hospital and an account of the balance still in the hands of Claypon & Co., his bankers at Boston, which enabled me to take out Letters of Administration for my Mother, who then sent me a Power of Attorney to act for her in the recovery of that money and the arrears of pay, etc., due to my late Uncle at the Admiralty.

Having by that time removed into respectable lodgings in the Goswell Road and having got assistance from my Mother, we were pretty comfortable.

August 1^st: a remarkable storm of thunder and lightening, wind, rain and hail, which destroyed many thousand pounds worth of glass in and around London, soon after which we removed to other lodgings in Maria St., Hackney Road.

September: Having now completed all my arrangements, I started for Boston, where I received from Claypon & Co. the balance due to my late Uncle Childers, amounting to about £300, his Commission as Lieutenant in the Royal Marines, and a Bond for £216 in his favor given by my other uncle, his Brother, General Twentyman, considered by all as worth nothing. However, on examining it I was of a different opinion, and having then a copy of my Uncle General Twentyman’s Will, by which I found that Mr Johnston of Darlington had been his acting executor and administrator. Finding that Mr Johnston had been some years dead, I knew that his will would be registered and deposited at York, to which city I resolved to proceed to inspect that will. I therefore took the coach from Boston to Lincoln and thence to Barton on the Humber, which fine river I crossed over to Hull, proceeding thence through Beverley to York, where I made the requisite examination of Mr Johnston’s will, whereby I discovered who were his executors and administrators, the chief of whom was the Reverend Mr Robinson of Beverley.

With the City of York I was much pleased, and stopped there two or three days when I went all round the walls. I visited all the old castles and towers (of which I made sketches), saw Dick Turpin’s grave, and I likewise went all over that immense and splendid structure, York Minster, where I saw the evidences of three different ages and religions.

1^st the heathen or pagan in the great altar found in the vaults below;

2^nd the Roman Catholic chapels, confessionals, altars, tombs, etc.; and

3^rd the more modern additions of the Protestant religion.

They also showed me the two splendid circular windows of stained glass, one made by the master and the other by his apprentice out of the fragments left by him, which latter being the most beautiful, the master became jealous and envious of his apprentices superior ingenuity and threw himself down from that immense height into the aisle of the church and was killed, of course. I likewise examined closely the stupendous new organ, the great pipes of which were sounded for me, and I also saw the small window through which the fanatic and insane incendiary, Martin (brother of the sublime artist, the illustrator of Milton and the Bible), found his entry and exit when he set fire to York Minster in 18__ ¹.

I next examined the picturesque ruins of St Mary’s Abbey and also the very elegant Museum of York near to the same, where I felt great admiration for the beautiful and scientific classification and arrangements of the skeletons of human beings, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes and so very superior to everything of that kind in the British Museum.

Returning to Beverley, I there wrote a letter to the Reverend Mr Robinson, Mr Johnston’s executor (who had refused to enter into any conference with me), respecting the Bond, claiming from him or the heirs of Mr Johnston the amount of that Bond, £216, with interest thereon for about 30 years, which letter I left at his residence, which remained a “dead letter” for nearly 8 years longer, but “stuck in their gizzards” all that time and ultimately led to the payment of that Bond.

Coming back to Lincoln, I spent two days there in visiting many parts familiar to my mind from descriptions thereof which I had frequently heard from my Mother, who was a native of that fine city. I inspected all parts of Lincoln Minster, the chancel, the choir, the nave, the aisles, the Chapter House, the cloisters and the Broad Tower and the Clock and Belfry, where I stood under Old Tom, once and long considered the largest bell in the world.

I likewise visited the grave of my Grandfather, the Reverend Doctor Childers Twentyman, and the house he used to inhabit in which my Mother was born, in Vicar’s Court near the Minster, of which I made a drawing. I then inspected the Roman Gate, the Stone Bow or chief Gate of the City, the market, the ruins of the Castle, the steep Castle Hill, the Grecian Steps, cemetery, etc., in all which I took a melancholy interest, not expecting ever to see them again, but I did so notwithstanding in 1846. I now returned to London in order to recover the balance due to my Uncle Childers at the Admiralty amounting to about £177, which, having received, I started again for Dublin via Liverpool, where I arrived safe with the whole gleaning £477 in gold, for had I taken that sum in Bank of England notes my Mother would have sustained a considerable loss by exchanging them for Irish Bank notes or gold in Dublin. I found her living with my Sister, who received me more kindly than I expected.

My Mother, of course, was very glad to see me, especially as I brought her so much money, out of which she most generously gave me £100. Having spent a few days in Dublin visiting old friends and the happy scenes of my youth, not forgetting the schools, etc., I returned to London thinking what I had best do with my £100.

Having previously frequented small Coffee Houses much and thinking it a good and profitable business, I advertised for a shop in that line, and accordingly purchased the business, fixtures, etc. of the Sun Coffee House in Sun Street, Long Acre, at the corner of Queen Street, Seven Dials, which I hoped to make answer. Although I was fully aware that it had then no business worth mentioning, many purchase even shut up shops and I thought I should be able with my connexions to draw or make a good trade there.

I therefore paid £20 to go in, and expended about £20 more in alterations, improvements and fittings-up and furniture, etc. The shop had an extensive frontage with one large window in King St. and another equally large in Queen St. The first, I fitted up with a large hot water apparatus, having 3 hot dishes, etc. to keep meat, puddings, etc., hot. The other window I set out with tea and coffee pots, cups, dishes. I likewise put up rods and scarlet stuff curtains between the boxes, bought a handsome new clock and put new blinds in the windows. I altered the name from the Sun to “The Economical Breakfast, Tea, Coffee, Dining & Supper Rooms”, which blinds were painted by our friend Francis Carr and cost me at least £3.

Besides the shop, we occupied the parlour, kitchen and drawing room, which latter I fitted up as a select, genteel and private coffee room, furnished with a handsome carpet, hearth rug, fender, fire-brasses, several large mahogany tables, 3 dozen handsome caned chairs, pictures, etc., intending and expecting to institute and establish there weekly meetings of various literary and scientific, discussional, temperance, political and trade societies, so as to occupy every evening in the week with one or another of them, and thus form a good connexion and business. But, unfortunately, I was quite disappointed in those expectations, for the neighbourhood was not sufficiently respectable for such purposes, whilst it was too remote from Chancery Lane, the grand focus of such societies.

The kitchen we used for cooking large joints of meat, vegetables and soup, puddings, etc. For all that accomodation I paid 19/- per week, besides the expense of the gas in the shop and all the newspapers, etc. We had plenty of custom for our meat, soup and puddings, for they were better and cheaper with better weight than at other shops. But, I soon discovered that meat loses a great deal in weight in the cooking, especially baking. The bones likewise cause a loss, so that selling the meat only in small quantities with good weight and a draught against me in every case, I found I was doing so with little or no profit.

The coffee business was inconsiderable. At that time coffee was 1/10 or 2/- a pound and sugar 8 or 9d. Bread and butter were also dear. All these things, combined with the expenses of a large family (for one or two of my Wife’s sisters came there to assist us) I soon ran through the little money I commenced with for want of some separate means or income to keep the business free. After striving therefore for many months, I was compelled to give it up and sold the much improved business, etc., for £28, with which I fitted up myself a front parlour in Hart Street, Covent Garden, as a small coffee room which I called the Victoria.

I likewise established a coffee stall in Covent Garden market, close to Evans’s Grand Hotel, which I used to take out every morning at 4 or 5 o’clock, and at which I did a good share of business, for my coffee was very superior to what was sold at other stalls. It was also sweeter and had more milk, and I gave good slices of bread and butter. But the best part of my business was in the summer, during the pea season, on Sunday morning, when the pea-shellers came up into the stables in Hart Street, to whom I have served above 100 cups of coffee before 9 in the morning, with bread and butter, eggs, etc., and on other mornings I used to take many cups to them in the market. Thus, I was forming a good connexion and business when “an envious man” (Mr Way, who kept a coffee house absolutely in the market), seeing how I was getting on, resolved to oppose and ruin me. With this view he fitted up another coffee house in a superior manner to me, in the very same street, within a few doors of me, and nearer to the market …

1839

… wherein he placed or set up a man who had long been a porter in the market and was well known by all parties there, and to whom of course they soon gave the preference to my total ruin. Under such circumstances, I unavoidably got in arrears for rent and was obliged to give it all up.

1840

Having no employment, I took to selling braces, garters, etc.

1841 & 1842

Continued the same, but got employed by Mr Ernsley for several months.

1843

Became acquainted with the Reverend John Prendergast Walsh, then officiating at St. Barnabas’ Church, King Square, Goswell Road (the incumbent, Mr Thompson, being ill) as his (Mr Walsh’s) father had been intimate with my Uncle, Col. Paumier, my Father and General Sir Brent Spencer, the friend of all those parties, after whom one of Mr Walsh’s sons was called Spencer Walsh. Mr Walsh professed to take great interest in me and my family, and had me much at his residence, where he employed me in copying his sermons, letters, etc., for which he paid me a very trifling consideration. But, as he often gave me meat and other things useful to my family, I felt quite satisfied, especially as he expected himself much to secure me some situation in the Metropolitan or City Police, in the General Post Office, as a keeper of lunatics in Bedlam or St. Lukes Hospital, as warder in any of the prisons or as a clerk in “the Pastoral Aid Society”, but all to no purpose. About this time, likewise I became a candidate for the situation of Master to the Tredegar School at Mile End and had the strongest recommendations from the Reverend Dr McCaul, Mr Walsh and others, but did not succeed.

When the Reverend Mr Thompson, incumbent of St Barnabas, died, I got up a strong petition from the congregation in favor of my friend Mr Walsh as his successor, addressed to the Bishop of London, to which I obtained the signatures of many respectable parties. But the appointment was given to Mr _____ , one of the curates of St Lukes Church and chaplain to St Luke’s Hospital. At this time my son Mun Noble got into Worralls Free Grammar School, commonly known as the Red Coat School.

During this and the following year we were greatly assisted by a rich and very benevolent lady, Miss Holl, who took a warm interest in our situation.

1844

Recommended by Miss Holl, I got a temporary engagement with Mr Betts, stationer, a friend of hers and of the City Road Bridge, who were quakers, like Mr Betts. He employed me to superintend the execution of some very large and elaborate maps and plans of Beer Ferris in Wales and other estates in Linograph which he was getting done for Shaw & Son of Fetter Lane, in which capacity I was engaged for several weeks in Hatton Garden and for which he paid me regularly. I afterwards travelled with Mr Betts’s Family Atlas and his very large Map of England, but could not do much with them. My friend Doctor McCaul, at my instance, became a subscriber to the Family Atlas.

1845

I still continued at intervals selling braces, garters, etc., and worked for a while in Mr Cameron’s factory in that line, where my son William was employed for about 7 years.

1846

Early this year my mother received a letter from Mr William Grayburn, Solicitor, of Barton, on behalf of Mr Johnston’s executors and respecting the old Bond for £216, stating that although it was null and void and of no value whatever, yet, as they wanted to wind up the affairs of Mr Johnston’s estate, they would voluntarily give her £50 if she would give up that Bond. On her writing to me about it, I strongly advised her not to do so, as I felt assured she would recover the whole amount if she persevered and held out. I then wrote to Mr Greyburn stating that unless the full amount of that Bond with the interest accruing on the same were not paid within a certain period, a bill would be filed in Chancery for the recovery thereof. In his answer he denied the responsibility of his clients and almost dared us to proceed.

Having by other means found out Mr Johnston’s daughter, who inherited his property, and her husband, Capt. Robertson of Cheltenham, I wrote to them charging Mr Greyburn with deceiving them, and urging them to withhold a settlement in order that we might take proceedings and he reap the costs of a Chancery suit. At this, the lawyer was much offended, probably because it was the unpalatable truth, in consequence of which the matter was at a stand still for several months. At length, he wrote again to my mother saying that the executors were then willing to pay the full amount of the Bond, but no interest thereon, and that if she would depute her son-in- law Mr Clement to meet him (Mr Grayburn) at Liverpool or elsewhere to give him up the Bond, he would pay it, but he wished to have no further dealings with me. To that my Mother replied that Mr Clement was ill and unable to go, and that as she had given me a Power of Attorney to receive all property or effects of her late brother, I was the most fit and proper person to do so, and would accordingly wait upon him at Barton for that purpose.

That was late in December, and the winter was then very severe, in spite of all which I started and passing through Lincoln again, to which city the railroad was by that time extended, I took the road from thence to Barton, a distance of 16 miles, to walk it through intense frost and deep snow which prevented the coaches from travelling. But I was anxious to get forward, and would not be detained by anything, as Mr Grayburn had made a special appointment for a particular day (the very next to that on which I set out to walk from Lincoln to Barton) and I was determined to be punctual.

I therefore stepped on briskly, wrapped in a large travelling cloak with my carpet-bag in my hand, and although I never saw so rigorous or severe a winter, I kept myself warm by exercise. The whole country round as far as the eye could reach (and there is not a flatter county in all England) was one immense field of snow, the drifts of which in many places were 10 or 12 feet deep. The roads were sheets of ice, so very slippery that it was very difficult to keep one’s feet or to make any rapid progress.

On reaching Spittal, about 6 miles beyond Lincoln, it began to grow dusk and I was very glad to avail myself of a broad-wheeled wagon which was going on to Brigg, about 4 miles further, where I must stop for the night. In the wagon, I found myself much colder than when on foot. Still, it was far preferable to walking alone on a wild and strange country road covered with snow and ice, at night too, when I might have missed my way and lost in some ditch or snow drift.

I accordingly stopped for that night at a comfortable little inn in Brigg, and after breakfast the next morning set off again upon foot to walk the other 6 miles into Barton. The frost was very severe, but the sun shone brightly and I was happy and blithesome as a lark. In toiling up one steep hill I got so warm that I was obliged to take off my cloak and carry it over one arm, whilst I carried my large carpet-bag on the other side. Near the summit of the hill I met 3 agricultural labourers, one of whom in passing me said “Whoy, thee swets, Measter!” “Yes”, said I, “and so would you if you had my load to carry up this hill just now”.

At length I reached Barton, much fatigued, and chosing my quarters at a neat little inn had some refreshment, then put on my best clothes, and sent a note to Mr Grayburn, whose son soon after came to conduct me to his office. That gentleman received me with formal politeness. Our business was very soon done. I gave him up the Bond and he paid me £220, £81 of which was a Bill payable in London which had about 3 months to run.

This obliged me to return to town to get it discounted, which I did on good terms, and then again started for Liverpool on my last trip to Dublin, for I never expect to see it more. Again I carried in my pocket above £200 in gold, for the reason previously stated when, in 1838, I took my mother £477 in gold.

I had lost so much time by these unforeseen delays, etc., that Christmas was now so very close at hand, that my wife said “It is impossible for you now to go to Dublin and back again before Christmas. Besides, your mother and sister will persuade you to spend this Christmas with them, as it is many years since you were amongst them at this season, and what is worse, I shall be confined during your absence”. “Fear not, my dear”, I replied. “I can and will be back here before Christmas day, unless prevented by some obstacle or accident over which I can have no control. Believe me, I would much rather spend my Christmas with you and our dear children than even with my Mother and Sister, who cannot persuade me to do so. I hope you will keep up ‘till my return, which you may depend will be before Christmas day”.

Off I went therefore by a fast train for Liverpool, where I arrived just in time to catch the steam packet about to start for Dublin, to which we made a quick passage. Immediately on landing there I took a jaunting car and posted on to Phibbsboro’, where I very soon settled accounts with my Mother. I then proceeded to the Bank of Ireland and got her bank notes for the gold, out of which she gave me again £100, saying “you well deserve it, for I should never have got one penny for that Bond had it not been for your boldness and cleverness in managing that business. And when they offered me £50 for it, I would gladly have accepted that compromise had it not been for your persuasion and good conduct”.

My Mother, Sister and Nieces wished me much to stop over Christmas with them, but when I told them exactly how matters stood at home, and how positively I had promised to be back there before Christmas day, they gave up their efforts to keep me in Dublin.

That I might not come back empty handed, I bought a fine large turkey, a pair of ducks and a bottle of whiskey, and my Mother gave me an Irish Ham. With these and some nice clothes, which my Mother and Sister sent as presents to my Wife, I set off again from Dublin, the second day after my arrival, for Liverpool, whence I took the rail direct for London. That winter was excessively severe, and I found it desperate cold even in a second class carriage. When we had proceeded about half way towards town a very heavy fall of snow took place, which impeded the progress of the train considerably, until at length the road was stopped up and we came to a standstill in a bleak miserable part of the country where we expected to be detained for a day or two. There was a very agreeable and amusing gentleman in the same carriage with me (an actor of some celebrity I imagine) who kept us alive with his wit and anecdotes, keeping up a frequent interchange of puns and jokes with me. He knew what provisions I had in my baskets, and said as we were likely to spend our Christmas day there we should not starve whilst we had my stock to make use of.

Many men being sent out to clear the road, we began to move again slowly after several hours delay, for the rails were so slippery with the frost and snow that the wheels of the engine and train could get no firm hold. But, as we gradually drew near to town we found the snow less deep, when, by putting on another engine behind, we got better and at length reached Euston Square, whence I made the best of my way home. I found all right and well, it being then Christmas Eve, so that I had fulfilled my promise faithfully, and accordingly I spent that Christmas more happily at home with all my family around me than I ever did either before or since. Fortunately, your Mother kept up comfortably for 3 days more, and on the 28^th of December 1846 my seventh Son, Francis William Was born in City Garden Place, City Road.

1847

My Son William, being anxious to change his occupation and learn some other trade than brace making, I advertised accordingly for him offering £10 as a bonus to any person who would get him a respectable engagement. To that advertisement we had several answers, upon one of which we acted most unfortunably. That was from a most plausible fellow (a Jew, I believe) whose name was Grosvenor Solimey, who undertook to teach him the French silk hat making for £6, but never fulfilled his engagement, and I paid £2 more to another rogue to perfect him in the same who likewise left us in the lurch.

Being fearful of again sinking my money in business as I did in 1839, I now advertised for an official situation in any railroad, office, wharf or warehouse, offering as a douceur from £20 to £50. As usual I had several answers, one from a new cab company then about to be started, another from Mr Fox who said he had taken the Strand Theatre and was going to open it. He offered to make me box-keeper, with a salary of £2 per week, if I would lend him £50 upon security of the lease of a handsome house he then held in Walcott Place, Lambeth, which £50 he said he would repay me by instalments of £2 per week at least, as soon as he got properly to work. But, knowing how uncertain all theatrical speculations are and how many are ruined by them, I declined that concern altogether.

Another answer (and that which I thought was best) was from Mr Henry Harrild, an engineer in Princes St., Lambeth, who said he wanted a clerk and book-keeper, and requested me to call upon him, which I did when I found him hard at work in a large factory with a large steam engine at work, surrounded by several men engaged in the manufacture of steam engines, lathes, tools, etc. He was a very plain but plausible man and said that as his last clerk had defrauded him and decamped. Although he had brought him excellent written characters, he should require me merely to deposit £20 in his hands as security, which I could have back again whenever I thought proper to give up the situation. He agreed to pay me 30/- a week as salary for the first 6 months, to be then increased to £2 a week with a prospect of becoming his partner should I be enabled to bring in £100 or so.

All this looked and sounded very well, and as engineering was a business I very much wished to learn and one which generally pays very well, I was quite pleased with my prospects, and accordingly drew up two copies of an agreement to the above effect, upon stamps, and handed him over the £20 at his lodgings one evening, in the presence of my brother-in-law, Mr George Gargrave, who regularly witnessed the execution thereof. Mr Harrild appeared quite indifferent about the money, and to show his liberal spirit he treated us to a bottle of port wine, and said he hoped it would be very long before I should have occasion to withdraw that money from his hands, as he trusted I should find it advantageous to remain many years in his employment.

All this took place early in February, and I went to work animated with the most lively hopes of future prosperity. In order to be near my place of business, I took a small house in William St., East St., Lambeth Walk, where I had a splendid show of crocuses.

March 21^st: This being the day on which my eldest Son William came of age, we gave a large party to our friends and relations, in honor of that event, at which Louisa Avery, now my Son William’s Wife was present, whom I liked greatly, and wished secretly that he might be married to. She appeared so very agreeable and so very fond of him.

Mr Harrild paid me my salary of 30s/- very regularly for a few weeks (probably out of my own £20), but soon became irregular in his payments, and even borrowed money from me upon the strength of large country orders which I knew him to have obtained, and which would, had he executed them, have yielded him a very considerable profit. But he was unable to procure the money or credit necessary for such extensive business, and could not benefit by so favourable an opportunity.

As the accommodation for a counting house was small and uncomfortable at the factory, he took a house in ____ Street, Princes Road, and fitted up the back parlour as a counting house for my accommodation, he said, but most probably for the purpose of preventing me seeing how things went on at the factory.

As to the accounts, he never would furnish me with the materials necessary to make them up or form a regular set of books which, with other parts of his conduct, began to excite my suspicions that he was a very different character from what I at first supposed him to be. Yet, I still indulged hopes that all would go well, because I knew that he was a son of Mr Harrild, the head of the highly respectable firm of “Harrild & Sons”, steam press and printer’s machine makers, then of St. Pancras Lane in the City, now of Farringdon St., who, I thought it likely, would assist their son and brother. Again, Mr Staley, the builder of Islington, who owned many houses and did much business there, was the uncle of Mr Harrild (for he had a very nice wife and child), and this Mr Staley used to visit his niece and her husband sometimes.

I forgot to state that although he had no partner, Mr Harrild used the title of “Henry Harrild & Co” in order, as he said, to give a more respectable idea of the business, and as I was much more respectable in appearance dress and manners than himself, he used to send me to the best parties on the most important business, saying they would take me for his partner, which he hoped I might be before long, and this I believe was often the case.

At length, one day in the month of April (when I had been about 2 months in his employ) he sent me out early with several different matters to attend to in various and remote parts of town which occupied me until the evening. On returning to the house he occupied, I found it empty and shut up, and found that in my absence he had called in a broker to whom he had sold the furniture, which was at once removed. When he quitted the place with his wife and child, but where they were gone to nobody knew, it being holiday time (Easter), he had likewise closed the factory, owing all the men he employed several weeks wages. Thus, was I cheated out of £33.5.10, including the £20 lodged with him only as security, he said, and not only so, but depending upon the advantage and stability of that situation, I had gone to much greater expense for furniture, clothes, etc., for myself and family than I should otherwise have done. And now all my hopes and prospects were at once completely blighted.

I applied to Mr Harrild’s father at his residence in Sydenham, where he has a beautiful villa and grounds, like those of some wealthy noblemen, but he would do nothing for me, saying that his son was a complete reprobate and outcast of his family, and that unless he sincerely repented and amended his life, he should never have another shilling of his money either whilst he lived or when he was dead.

I afterwards applied to his brothers, with no better success, and also to his sister, Mrs Baxter of Northampton Square, who likewise declined to do anything in my favor. Thus I was utterly ruined and driven nearly mad by the heartless villainy of that base fellow who knew very well that I had no other dependence and had a family of 7 children.

Our little funds were soon exhausted and we were then obliged to part with furniture, clothes, etc. to procure the necessaries of life. That terrible misfortune was the first cause of my quitting home for I could not bear to see my dear Wife and children in want of subsistence which I was totally unable to procure for them.

1848

In the early part of this year we were living in a small house in Cardigan St., Kennington Lane.

All my Sons and my Daughter, Susan, were then living at home, each contributing something towards the general support. But my Son William was persuaded to leave home by Harry Latham, with whom he went to live and of course he ceased to give us any assistance. We soon after removed to William St., Gt. Suffolk St., Borough.

April 10^th: Attended the great Chartist meeting on Kennington Common as a Special Constable, having been duly sworn in as such at Lambeth vestry room some days previous, when I gave my address, Cardigan St., in order that I might have to act in that neighbourhood which was very near Kennington Common, where I was appointed to patrol on that very important day. ¹

We, the Special Constables for that District of Lambeth Parish, assembled that morning in the School Room at Kennington Oval where we received our instructions, which were: not to interfere with or molest the Chartists, unless we saw them bent on mischief and committing some breach of the peace; we were to act in consort with the police if necessary, and under the order of their Superintendants. Each of us had his staff or truncheon concealed, and we were supplied with white bands with buckles, to be worn on the left arm, to distinguish us if any serious riot should take place.

My post was to parade directly in front of the Common from Kennington Church to the Horns Tavern, where I marched up and down for several hours, and had a perfect view of the whole procession and arrangements. I even went on the Common through the very midst of the Chartists and close to the Hastings Platform or wagon where the leaders were stationed, and from which their speeches were delivered, but saw no tendency to riot or disorder. Going back to our rendevous, I gave a favourable report when a very fine gentleman, who was one amongst us, came in with his white band round his arm and his staff exposed in his hand, and who turning to me particularly said “Why do you not all act like me and shew (sic) what you are openly ?” “Because”, said I, “our object is to keep the peace and avoid riot and disorder while it is prudent and proper to do so, and not to provoke and produce them”. “Pshaw!” said this fop. “You are all afraid to shew what you are”. “Perhaps, Sir” said I with indignation, “I and others are no more afraid than you are, and should necessity require our shewing open resistance, we may be quite as courageous as you”.

I then appealed to our Inspector or officer, who said I was perfectly right, and he reprimanded that very fast gentleman for his impudence and rashness, and ordered him to take off his white band and to conceal his staff from view. Just then, the Chartist meeting was peaceably dispersing and, as several of its members came through the Oval with some of their banners furled or rolled-up, this fast gentleman proposed that we should sally out and seize upon those banners. “Certainly not, Sir” said our Inspector. They are breaking up and going home quietly, but any attack upon them now would produce a serious disturbance and lead to real mischief, to we know not what extent”. All went off quietly, and the Chartists sunk into their native insignificance.

If on that day they had any plan or intention of making a row (which I very much doubt), they were confounded and overawed by the effectual preparations made by Government to put them down at once, had they been so silly as to have attempted it.

November 2^nd: Phoebe Elizabeth born. Absent from home again, owing to the complaints of my Daughter Susan, etc., at my idleness and dependence.

1849

Susan had quitted home, and John also, because I was living upon their earnings. This year I was much from home, and suffered very great hardships, being once for 6 weeks together without once lying down in a bed, but spent my time sleeping in the parks in summer, or dozing in coffee houses in cold or wet weather.

I was absent when poor Francis died of Cholera, when his mother was thought to be dead of the same terrible malady.

That Christmas I spent in the East London Model Lodging House in Glasshouse Yard, Dock Street, near the London Docks, where we slept in bunks, or wooden berths like horse boxes on leather beds, our covering being a worsted rug and one or two skins of leather.

1850

Much the same as last year, “bobbing around” from one lodging house to another, but still earning a subsistence, or rather an existence, for myself by making and selling garters. Still, preferable to living “dependent on my Wife and children”.

1851

At home the greater part of this year¹. Engaged for several months selling pictures, books, etc., in front of the Great Exhibition, whose progress I watched almost daily from the time the first pillar was erected until it was opened. During this time, I did pretty well by buying views of the building plain and colouring them myself, until suddenly, one Sunday morning, when I and many others had strained every nerve to get up a good stock, on going to Hyde Park we found large bills posted at every gate, strictly prohibiting the exposure or sale of any sort of goods in any part of that park, not only then, but at any future time, although we had no notice of this from the police the evening before.

This was a terrible blow and disappointment to many. One young lad, who was the best and most fortunate salesman of all, had laid out above £2 in the purchase of medals, all which he expected to sell that day, but which were now in a measure useless, for although you might suppose that persons going into Hyde Park to see the exhibition, or coming out from it, would be as ready to buy pictures or medals thereof outside as well as inside the park, the fact was otherwise. Not one could be sold outside for 50 which had been sold inside.

In this extremity, we were glad to dispose of our stock to the small shops about Knightsbridge at the wholesale cash price that we might not go home without any money. Our case being one of great hardship, I drew up a petition to Prince Albert, President of the Royal Commission for the building, etc., of the exhibition, praying for an alteration in our favor, which I got signed by many of the picture, book and medal sellers and forwarded to His Royal Highness, but never received any answer thereto. So our misfortune proved to be complete and irremediable.

May 1^st: Took George to see the opening of the Great Exhibition by the Queen, Prince Albert, etc., etc., which was a very splendid sight and the day was bright and beautiful.

I omitted in its proper place that on March 25^th Lavinia was born.

As Mun and Henry were still living at home, had employment and brought in something to the common stock, they now became dissatisfied and complained as the others had done before that I was idle and in some measure dependent upon their earnings. Stung by this accusation, I again fled from home to the hardships incident to the life of a common lodger spending my days at work in a cold, comfortless back garrett, and my nights trudging through the streets, striving hard to earn a scanty pittance, exposed to wet, cold and insult, rather than be a burden or trouble to others.

1852

Having still occasionally had assistance from my Mother and being always willing and ready to do the best I could towards maintaining my family, I ought not to have been driven away by the charge of subsisting upon the labours and earnings of others.

May 26^th: Received a letter from my Mother enclosing me £1, for which I had not asked her. That letter was much as follows –

“Phibbsboro’ – Dublin

22^nd May 1852

“My poor Dear Mun,

This is the last letter you will ever receive from me, for I feel that I am dying, and although Dixie Clement is despaired of and they do not know the hour he may die, I somehow think I shall go before he does. I enclose you £1 and wish I could do more, but the trifle I have left will only be sufficient to bury me decently. With best prayers and blessings for you and your family, I remain Dear Mun

Your affectionate Mother

Susanna Paumier”

That letter alarmed me seriously, although my Mother had often before thought she was dying, and I felt half inclined to start off for Dublin, ill-furnished as I was for such a purpose. However, I answered it directly, saying that if she still felt in any danger I begged her to write to me immediately if she was able, or to get my Sister Fanny to do so for her, and that I would find some means of getting over to Dublin as soon as possible. I received no answer, but was much shocked a few days after on that letter being returned with the awful word “Dead” in large red letters. I then wrote to my Sister to know when my Mother died and whether she had thought or spoken about me before her departure, to which she replied very briefly that my Mother died on the 28^th of May, but had not mentioned me, that she had not left any money behind her, but that there were two boxes of her clothes which might be useful to my Wife and daughters, if I could find any means of getting them over.

A few days afterwards she informed me that on June 8^th her husband Dixie Clement had died. This was in accordance with my Mother’s prediction. Having now lost her husband and all her children, except her eldest son Dixie who was living in the country, she was going to sell off her furniture and to go and live with him, and as my Mother had left a few articles of furniture they were sold at the same time and my Sister remitted me the amount they sold for. The two boxes of clothes I had brought over in a sailing vessel from Dublin. Necessity compelled us to part with them, so that they proved of but little use.

1853

Almost all this year I was absent from home, living at lodgings in Queen St., Seven Dials, where I met with a very extraordinary person and character, Mr James Wells, who had been a boatswain in the navy. He was handsome, tall and of herculean frame and proportions, and possessed the voice of a stentor. He was an excellent scholar, remarkably witty, and full of amusing anecdotes of persons and things both on land and sea. He was likewise highly talented and was perfect master of a very elegant art called Pyrography, or drawing upon wood with hot irons. Some of his performances in this line were really beautiful, especially his portraits of the Queen, the Duke of Wellington and a picture of a Spanish monk at his devotions with a crucifix and a skull before him.

With all these mental endowments and physical powers he was remarkably kind hearted and gentle in his manners, and had a sweet and smiling expression in his large and handsome eyes. It was impossible to see and hear him without feeling warm admiration and regard towards him, which I evinced so plainly by looks, words, actions and writing as to convince him of my sincerity, and he professed an equally warm friendship towards me.

In all my long and wide experience I never met so agreeable a companion. To amuse him, I composed about 20 little songs or poems all upon persons or occurrences in the lodging house where we were living, with which he was greatly delighted for he was himself a poet and a good singer of sea and other songs. But, as a counterpoise to all those pleasing qualities, he had one gigantic fault, a terrible propensity for drink, which had often reduced him to the lowest ebb of poverty and misery, although his family and friends were all highly respectable and independent.

It was really melancholy and painful to see so great a genius give way to so degrading a vice. I often kindly reasoned with him upon it, and twice succeeded in prevailing upon him to join the “Total Abstinence Society”, which he did, and on each occasion persevered for several weeks in the strict observance of the pledge.

It was then really delightful to mark the change in his appearance manners and conduct, as he could now dress well, look well, eat and live well, and act well. He did not however persevere long in that good cause, and ultimately his friends sent him and his brother (much like himself) out to America, from whence they meant to make their way to Australia, and I hence never since heard how they got on, but mean to make enquiry.

1854

This year, as last, I was much from home, and continued to live at the same lodging house.

July 31^st: Our lovely little Daughter Phoebe, then in her 6^th year, died of a sun-stroke whilst I was absent, but hearing of it the next day, I went home at once to see my darling child before she was consigned to the grave and to console her mother who was almost distracted. I could not, however, see my child who was already screwed down in her coffin, but I was comforted by anecdotes of her which my Wife told me, and by the full conviction that our lovely one was then an angel in Heaven, for did not Our Saviour Himself say “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven”, and she was an angel even on earth. The remainder of this year we suffered much adversity, and I was almost mad to see my dear Wife and children so much in want of necessaries which it was out of my power to obtain for them.

1855

January 29^th: Mr George Gargrave, my Wife’s father, died, being then about ___ years old. The same day I quitted home unable to endure any longer the sight of my family’s distresses.

February 5^th: Met with a serious accident by falling down the kitchen stairs in the dark at a strange lodging house, when I was so severely hurt as to be obliged to keep my bed next day, and growing much worse, and being seized with excruciating pain in my inside so that I thought I was actually dying, I begged to be taken to St Giles’ Workhouse. When I got there I was at once sent up into the infirmary, where I continued for 3 or 4 weeks, having very comfortable quarters there all that time, but occasionally shocked by seeing poor creatures dying around me.

On getting better I was removed into the body of the house, where the food was so scanty and the society so disagreeable that I applied for my discharge after one weeks’ experience there, and came out accordingly.

I was then but thinly clad and lately out of a sick bed in very severe winter weather, without a penny in my possession. To raise two or three pence, I sold a pocket handkerchief, etc., which enabled me to go to a coffee house and write a note to my excellent friend Doctor McCaul, which I took to his residence, but as he was then out I had to walk about in the cold for an hour or two. When going down to Billingsgate Market, I found on the wharf there a piece of tin with the word “Prosper” upon it, which I took as a good omen for the future, and so it turned out to be, for I had good luck for a long time after and whilst ever I kept it. On returning to Dr McCaul’s, I received from him 2/-, which set me up with a little stock of garters and enabled me to provide myself with a comfortable lodging, food, etc.

The remainder of this year I spent in voluntary banishment from my home and family, and in constant efforts to maintain myself by honest industry. This Christmas, having been assisted by Dr McCaul with a trifle, I was resolved to have Christmas fare, and accordingly purchased a small quantity of roast beef, baked potatoes, greens and plum pudding at a cookshop for the very moderate sum of 6½d., which made me a comfortable dinner. But, I thought much about my poor family at home and considered whether they had even so good a meal as the poor wandering outcast.

1856

Feeling increased anxiety about my Wife and children, of whom I had seen or heard nothing for above twelve months, I resolved to make enquiry about them and to return home if I should find matters suitable for my doing so. Accordingly, on March 21^st, being Good Friday and the anniversary of my Son William’s birth (he being now 30 years old), I wrote an affectionate letter to my Wife, which I took over in the evening to Bermondsey, and sent by a strange boy to the house where I had left her living, whilst I waited the result in a coffee house nearby. The messenger soon returned saying that she had left that residence some time ago, and that the people there did not know where she was then living. This was sad news for me, and for some time I was at a loss how to proceed. But still anxious to see my dear Wife and children, I at last resolved to enclose a letter for her to my Son Mun, which I did, and took it to where he was working when I last left home. But, I was there informed that he had quitted that employment and was engaged in another concern in the Borough, to which place I took it and left it for him as he was out.

In that letter to my Wife, I appointed to meet her at a certain coffee house in the Borough, which I accordingly, did when I found her as usual very melancholy but still forgiving and affectionate as she has ever been towards me, notwithstanding all the trouble and grief I have caused her by my frequent and long sojournings from home. I was deeply affected by the involuntary fondness of our dear little Daughter Lavinia, who seemed delighted to see me once more and who squeezed and actually kissed my hand several times. Moved by these natural evidences of being still an object of regard to my beloved Wife and children, I agreed to return home, which I did on Sunday, April 27^th, when I met with an affectionate welcome. But, as my peculiar business obliged me to travel about the West End of town until very late every night, and I had then to “plod my weary way” to Bermondsey, I used to get home so dreadfully fatigued as to be scarcely able to crawl, having to go a long way for my materials every morning. This, together with bad trade and the misery of still seeing the distress of my family, obliged me to quit home once more on the 19^th July, Since which I have struggled on alone.

London 17^th November 1856

My Dear Sons,

Contrary to my expectations, I have been enabled to bring this little volume to a close, and to furnish it will all the most important particulars which I wished to place on record for your information and amusement. On revising these pages, I find I have omitted many things which I meant then to include, but nothing much of consequence.

If I should be spared a little longer and be permitted to do so, I may and will yet add the Appendix, which will contain all or most of those omitted particulars. But, should I not find time and opportunity to do so, I shall rest satisfied with what I have already done, and therefore now commend this little work to your particular care and attention. You may implicitly rely on the general correctness, although I may possibly in some few instances have mistaken dates. Still, it is rather surprising that I should so well remember so many things at such various and now remote periods. The duty of compiling this little volume for you has laid heavy on my mind for years, and now that it is completed I feel relieved from a great oppression.

Having been now nearly 4 months absent from home, I again begin to experience those natural yearnings after the society and [….] of the Wife of my bosom, the partner of my joys and sorrows, and those dear children with whom God has graciously blessed us. For, although they, as well as other frail and mortal creatures, may each have some peculiar fault or defect (and who is without such), yet upon the whole we have very great reason to thank God that they are free from any serious defect either mental, bodily or in their lives and conduct. None of them have ever (to the best of my knowledge and belief) been guilty of any fault or action which need call a blush into the cheeks of their parents, or cause us any serious trouble or regret. On the contrary, you have all done your duty diligently, faithfully and honestly. May you ever continue to do so, and to be a credit not only to yourselves but to us likewise.

It is my present intention to communicate with your mother soon and to make arrangements for spending this Christmas in the sanctuary of home and in the sweet company of my family. Possibly I may be disappointed in this object and expectation. If so, and that I should then be still living, though absent in person, I shall be with you in spirit, and shall then, as always, fervently pray that God may bless you each and all with His Mercy and Goodness, and endow you with health, happiness and Prosperity.

And now to conclude, I offer the following observations as an extermination at least of any errors, although they may not be considered by you or others as affording a sufficient excuse for the same. My faults have been those of omission, rather than commission. I have indeed “left undone those things which I ought to have done” in my great neglect of your education, in not taking better care of my employments, and the means placed at my disposal from time to time, and especially in leaving my Wife and children to struggle with adversity. Whilst I had the means of providing properly for them, and of making them comfortable and happy, I did so faithfully and cheerfully. When at home, I never was an unkind husband or harsh Father, but loved my Wife and children dearly, and did all in my power to promote their peace and welfare.

When my means were exhausted and I could no longer do anything material towards their support, I could not bear to continue in any degree to be dependent upon them or to witness the misery and want which my own improvidence, not vices, had brought upon them, and had I not fled and remained away I should either have gone mad or put an end to my existence. Such were and still are my feelings. But, I will yet strive and hope to bring about a better state of things. Adieu my Sons. May God bless you all, pray, your affectionate Father

M. W. Paumier

Professor Mungleton

Thursday, 17 October 2024

The Triffid Bee Garden

Thursday, 16 May 2024

Ancestors: Mungo Paumier (Diary 1856)

“England expects every man to do his duty”

I also visited the cockpit, and saw the very spot where he expired, from which I brought a piece of sea biscuit, which I kept as a sacred relic for many years.

When he who dedicates this song

When ye’ll not blush to call him friend

Lucky Disciples (fewer than Gandhi but much more important)

Devotee visits

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