Supporting Documents

SD1156.  Edward Moulton-Barrett (father) to William Wemyss Anderson

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 378 (in part).

July 21, 1841.

My dear Sir

Affairs are indeed in a most disastrous state in our doomed Island, & if you are sensible of it, who have only a temporary interest there, & at the worse can pack up & leave us to our fate, what must be my feelings, who have every thing to lose, & who must cling to the wreck, & together be engulphed in ruin.

If it be wrong to do evil that good may come it cannot be right to do good that evil may ensue, & such must be the result of what has been inculcated on the minds of the Negroes by their assumed friends: the work is little, & that little they are instructed to demand a great price for, so we cannot supply the market but at an extravagant rate, & hence the necessity of opening the Ports to the Sugar Produce of other Countries.

Did you remark that in the Debate on the Sugar Bill, the very superior condition of the black to the white labourer was made a ground for an alteration of the duty, & who can gainsay the argument, for the former is surely not to be preferred to the latter, however entitled he may be to the same rights.

Mr Kemble forwarded to me the Account enclosed, the payment of which you will see was to await the application of Mr Whitehorne, but which has not been made. Previous to doing so, I should have required an explanation of a portion of the charges, & perhaps you may be enabled to afford it me. First who could have ordered a copy of this Will, as we had easily sufficient Copies of them; & why this charge about the compensation, when all the Papers had been sent hither long before, & then charged for? besides the money never could have been obtained there–

Then again the tremendous charges for the late business, Drawing the Case £30.10–& making a copy £15.5 &c &c, and can I in equity be expected to pay for these, which arose in consequence of my Solicitor not complying with my instructions, whereby I have been frustrated in the object I had in view, & for which he was employed. Is it not, I put it to you, as to any honorable man, very much like an attempt on the face of it to make business. I only desire that you will consider it well, & tell me how you would act if you were in my place.

I am sorry to say that in consequence of my instructions not getting out in time for the May Court, nothing yet has been done.

You are very kind in your friendly offer of service; I assure you I deeply regret your absence from Jamaica at a time so essential to my interests, & which has suffered much from the delay that has ensued.

I trust your family will feel themselves as comfortable at Rothery as they can be in your absence: as respects the climate, I have often heard it called the Devonshire of Scotland, so I hope they will not feel the severity of the next winter.

I am, my dear Sir

Yrs very truly

E M Barrett.

W. W. Anderson Esqre

When do you leave for New York.

Publication: None traced.

Source: File copy at Eton College Library.

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