| Transcript or Index | Dear Sir William,
I have been indebted to you in a thousand ways since I gave you the trouble of reading an unprofitable scroll of mine; by your agreeable letter from Tissington in December, upon several entertaining pieces against the abolition of the African slave trade; likewise your kind present of a Derbyshire cheese—all of which I have feasted upon with no small pleasure, according to the different gratifications of my mental and corporeal frames—lamenting only that I have nothing but empty thanks to send you in return for these favours.
Yet if it be some satisfaction to you to know that I join with you in an entire disapprobation of an amicable settlement of the dispute with Spain, when so large a share of the burden of taxes for effecting that peaceful exploit was to be laid upon the poor planters of the sugar colonies, I concur with you most heartily in that complaint; as I much fear that although the ill consequences of such an additional load on our produce might not be immediately felt whilst short crops give us the opportunity of keeping up proportionate prices, yet upon the first glut of the English market with sugar, the heavy taxes will then fall solely on the planter and leave him no clearance for the produce of his soil.
I must not however omit to congratulate you on the good fortune of my kinsman in the settling that [gap] by obtaining an entire passage with a promise to support the title [gap].
I give you joy, however, of the defeat of Mr. Wilberforce’s motion to abolish the slave trade to Africa; not that I think this trade meets interruption in that respect, which America I believe depends greatly upon to keep annual supplies from that coast to keep up their proper strength on the plantations there; but on the contrary, with respect to our possessions here, I am very confident that there will accrue no advantage from increasing the number of their gangs by new negroes, although the Africans may be as able men as those purchased [gap].
Yet in this also I am your fellow mourner for even a greater sufferer, for Providence has afflicted me severely by the removal of [gap] at the Bridge [gap], the event of approaching a residence in this great London soon; but your disappointment in this respect, as I believe from unavoidable causes, is in a great measure [gap].
Whilst my negligence has been almost total, the defects of the management in a variety of hands which were changed, like the directions of Roman Emperors to the Prefect of the old province at Rome from bad to worse, to my equal sorrow.
We have many of the original pieces brought over from England, clipped there and made better to suit with milled edges than our ingenious artists of the present trade can turn them out [gap]; but for the particulars of our political squabbles upon this subject I must refer you to the printed papers of the Assembly, which you may get a sight of from some friend in Mark Lane.
The Governor has refused to receive any more of his salary from the Treasurer in the usual mutilated specie, in order to compel a proper regulation of the currency, without an indulgence to the wilful destroyers of the current coin for private gain.
It may be a curious circumstance to you to hear that on one side, for a radical regulation, Beckles and Maycock with many have contended [gap], whilst others have opposed them [gap].
The vestry intended to grant the project in the House of Assembly; but the Council threw out the bill by a majority of five or eight members [gap].
[gap — short passage, possibly referencing church or society]
I must now thank you, my dear Sir, for your copy of the inscription in Billingsley Church to the honour of our family as descended from Sir John Alleyne, Knight, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, Lord Mayor of London twice chosen; but I have some doubts upon my mind whether he be our real ancestor, for though the name be the same, yet colour and arms differ.
Sir Isaac Heard made clear to me when I was settling my genealogical table with him at his office in London, that proper evidence in such a case can only be relied upon.
It sets me seriously reflecting upon the extravagant pride of too many of the Alleyne family, with some few exceptions only, that we could have descended from a Lord Mayor of London.
Having brought my pen back from the great parent empire to her little colony about me, I cannot conclude my letter without some notice of a warm struggle we have had in our House of Assembly, which as long ago as from the year of the great American war it was proposed to have been begun [gap].
And having at the end received and hope benefit from the debates of the Assembly and the Treasury, both of which have passed [gap], I now conclude my letter to you my dear Sir.
I beg my most sincere regards to Lady Fitzherbert and your family, and am joined by my beloved partner in wishing you every happiness.
I remain, My Dear Sir, Your most obedient and most humble servant,
G. Alleyne |