SD1339. William Wemyss Anderson to Edward Moulton-Barrett (father)
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 14.
Spanish Town. Jamaica
22 Nov. 1847
My dear Sir
I had great pleasure in receiving a communication lately from Mr Roberts requesting my attention to the matter of opposition to a private Bill now being pressed thro’ the House of Assembly to invade your beach land in Falmouth by the Erection on it of a landing place for boats. Mr Whitelocke having been absent almost the whole Session has been unable to give me any aid, but I was placed on the committee directed to report on the Bill, and have been in my capacity of member in |earlyest| attendance at the examination of all the witnesses. The testimony was very conflicting. Several witnesses spoke with equal decision both ways—on the one hand that the “|Shire hall|” was utterly unsuitable from its locality not being central and from its unsheltered position—and on the other, that it was the most central and convenient and equally sheltered. The committee reported in favor of a Bill with restrictions and a proviso for compensation. The Bill will accordingly be introduced, but I will obtain an order for leave to oppose it by counsel at the Bar on the 2d reading. I think the Assembly may pass it in that shape—but if they do I will renew the opposition before the council where we shall have a much better chance.
I like much your attorney Mr Roberts. He appears to be a worthy unpretending man, and very full of zeal for your interests. And I believe your estates will thrive under his care. I did not go to Cornwall Court, as I had so much on hand here, but I hope to be there in March. I have not been able to procure your son a sufficient account of the costs and risks of a speculation to the Spanish Main or St Domingo for cattle. But I should greatly like to see him embarked in something of the kind. He seems fond of exertion. And surely it is the life both of body & soul in this climate. Mr Roberts tells me he is experimenting on the bitter cassada, one of our best starch p<lants.> It thrives in dry places, and I see it has produced as much as 25 Tons of the root pr acre, which will yield a great quantity of the starch, and if that sell for 19d pr lb in Glasgow (as I saw reported) the profits of sugar would be nothing to it. There are several districts in which it is much too speculative to grow sugar from prevalence of droughts. But there Cotton should now be tried.
The gloom here is awful. I dread “to think of the morrow ” and surely our interest as well as duty is to let it care for itself.
So your daughter is married. May it not quench the poetic spirit, & may she find in that state her visions realised. I am now 6 in family—a wife & 5 sons!
Ever truly yours
W. Wemyss Anderson
E B M Barrett Esq
Address: E. B. M. Barrett Esqr / 50 Wimpole Street / Cavendish Square / London.
Docket: Recd Decemr 27th / Ansd March 16th
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
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