LETTERSOFELIZABETH DRAPER.TO ——[39]

[Tellicherry April, 1769.]

MY DEAR SIR

IT’S with great pleasure I take every opportunity of paying my Duty to you, but more particularly this by the Grenville, as by her I’m enabled to give you a better account of Mr. Drapers success as a Merchant, than he flatter’d himself with any hopes of, upon his arrival at Tellicherry, and if Fortune continues to be as propitious to us, the six ensuing Seasons, as she’s proved the last,—Mr. D. would not thank the Directors for nominating him to the Government of Bombay. We are both well,entirely contented and wish not to exchange our situation, but for an Independence in England, which I hope we are in the way of obtaining, and may accomplish in six or seven Years, notwithstanding Hyder Ally maintains his Ground, and has absolutely refused to listen to terms of Peace from the Madrassers, unless they will make over Trichinopoly to him. This, they think they can not in point of Honor, or Conscience do—tho’ they are heartily tired of the War, & wish to accommodate with him, on reasonable terms—they are now preparing for a long Siege, which he has threatened them with, and if they do not receive Supplies of Money, & Troops, from England, God knows! what will be their fate!—as Hyder is really a very clever, and enterprising Man,—accustomed to face, & Conquer Europeans and has for his surest adviser, one of the best Politicians in India, Governour Laws—of Pondicherry, whom it is imagined, has always plan’d each of his Campaigns; the Gentlemen of Bengal have drained their Treasury, to befriend those of Madrass—but the Governour of Bombay—will not consent to assist them in any respect, tho’ he hasoften been solicited to do it—and a little timely aid from our side, might have prevented the present melancholy prospect, but he says, he has no notion of Quixotism adventures, and as we cannot benefit by the troubles, he will not risque our suffering any loss,—this argument is very cruel,[40]& superficial, tho’ at first it may appear Specious, ’tis impolitic too, because if the Madrassers are worsted, we certainly shall be the next Prey—but that’s a distant Day, & he always quotes “sufficient to the Day is the Evil thereof.” but he is a poor, despicable[41]Creature, in every respect and as unfit for a Governour—as I am for an Arch-Bishop, not one Individual, is there at Bombay, his friend,—and in short, he neither is—or deserves to be, Loved, esteem’d, or feared. We are very particularly interested in Hyders success, at this Settlement, as he has most of the Country powers, about us, in total subjection, & infests our Coast, with his Fleet, to intercept our Merchantmen, their’s no leavingus, now for Bombay, with any safety, without a Convoy, & the Bombay Cruizers, three or four of them, are Stationed between Carwar, Onore, & Mount Dilly, for that purpose. we are terribly infested too, by the Cooley Boats, & Mallawans. the Morattas, had the Insolence to surround Bombay with their Fleet a few months since, which did not a little terrify our Pusillanimous General, but they soon dispersed when the Commodore received Permission to ask them some questions. it’s imagined this Bravado was effected at the Instigation of Hyder, to Divert us from all thoughts of sending Troops to Madrass, it answerd his hopes—but if he had bribed the Governours Brahmin to be his friend, it would have done as well—for nothing in Public or domestic Concerns, is transacted at Bombay, without that Fellows knowledge & consent some of the Gentlemen by way of reprimand, have advised Mr. Hodges to give him a Seat at Council. our Island is now very Populous—very expensive, very improvable, & would be very flourishing, if we had a proper Man at the head of affairs. This Coast has been vastly injuredby Hyders Ravages. ’tis nothing in Comparison to what it was some Years ago, but would still be the Source of profit to the Company, & a Tellicherry Chief if the War was once happily terminated.—Most of the Gentlemen that distinguished themselves, by behaving ill at Mangulore, have been broke by a General Court Martial at Bombay. it was a tedious affair—lasting upwards of six Weeks, tho’ the Members met Daily,—This my dear Sir, is all the Public Intelligence, I can recollect, worthy of transmitting you, and now for a little private, Tom Whitehill, my kind Uncle, is well—I often hear from him & he must by all accounts, have made himself independent, by this time. he is increasing his Family of Natural Children, but declared to me, that he never would give them more than five thousand rupees each, because he would not tempt any Gentleman to marry them for the sake of Money, and he had rather dispose of them to Phesendars of their own Colour—than to Europeans—he has one Daughter marriageable, two young ones, & two or three infant Sons,—I never hear from Jack Whitehill, but I know he is well, from my Correspondentsat Madrass, I hope he does not maintain Silence to his English friends, as ...[42]should he be a good Accomptant & write swiftly Mr. Draper would be very glad of him here—make it worth his while, and keep him out of harms way, as he is in want of just such a Person, You know his inability to use the Pen—he has lost his two Clerks too, & if I was not capable of assisting, & maintaining his Correspondence for him I know not what he would do, at this juncture. I only fulfil my Duty—and have not the least merit in it—as a good Purvoe that thoroughly understood English, and spelled properly—would answer his Views still better. Louisa is very advantageously married, to the Commander of our Forces, a Colonel Pemble, he is handsome, amiable and magnificent in his temper—his Income amounts to thirty thousand Rupees a year—but I fear they stand little chance of saving a Fortune, as they are Gay—extravagant, & fond of Company, but I know not if it signifies much—as they love India—are healthy, admired, and esteemed here—and not very desirous of exchanging affluencein the Eastern ...[43]fondness, and is a Prince in Spirit, and occasional good works, they are on no terms with the Governour, neither visiting, or being visited by him. A Mr Banister, that is much older than yourself & formerly knew you in the Service, now resides here—he desired me to present his kindest remembrances to you, assuring you of his unalterable esteem, & good wishes. The good Man & his Wife live very comfortably—are well. and much noticed with respectful attention I hope to be favor’d with long & interesting letters from Europe by the next Ship—England, which was always dear to me—was never so much so as now!—the We[l]fare of my dear Children, sits very near my heart, & I cannot help feeling great anxiety on their account, tho’ I am confident of Mrs. Whitehills care, and best attention to their true Interest, God preserve the poor babes! may they live to give satisfaction to their Parents—and reflect honour on their amiable Protectress! I hope you had an agreeable Summer in the Society of my friend and little ...[44]by presenting my complimentsto him, and best wishes for his health, and enjoyment of England; wenowwish him our Head again, would to Heaven he had not left us a Prey to the foolish policy, and low Cunning of an Hodges[44]! the wish is entirely general, not a moist Eye—or grave Countenance will be visible on his Departure, unless it’s his Female Coffary Shirt airers,—for a few Rupees, or mere form’s sake. oh! he is gloriously hated! and I prognosticate, ever will be so—even by the Wife of his Bosom—if he is Dotard enough with his jealous propen[sities] and Selfish particularities, to make a second choice! but no:—his avarice will prevent his marrying again, for a good Woman would loathe his Wealth with such an Incumbrance as himself—and a bad one’s ...[45]happy—prays your ever grateful and ...[45]ed Child.

Eliza Draper

TellicherryApril 1769

Tellicherry

April 1769

P.S.

Mr Draper presents you his respectful Compliments, with t[he sin]cerest assurences of his doing every thi[ng i]n his power for Stephen, if you se[nd him] to Bombay.

Belvidere House, by Lee Woodward Zeigler, from an original sketch by J. B. Frazer.

Bombay 15th. April 1772.

I NOW have before me, Dearest of Women, and Friend twenty sheets of your writing received this year; and mean to answer every page of it which I’ve not yet replied to distinctly—the first Letter is dated 15th. May 1771 by Tryon of the Deptford, this I answered months ago—as I did that of the 5th. April, by Captain Allen, the contents of which related wholly to himself & Mr. Cooper his Nephew, and one of the same date, by Mr. Allen his Purser to the same effect—Your next is dated 28th. April and enclosed an Account of Money Matters—that of the 20th. shouldhave been handed first, but as it contains much more importantant [sic] matter, I purposely omitted giving it the Precedence—from meaning to speak at large on some parts of it.—You say my dear,that you had

“suffered much Uneasiness at hearing that I thought you had not acted a friendly part by me in protecting two unfortunate People,[46]and requesting me to make a contribution amongst my friends in their Favor:—that, this Report touched you to the heart; tho’ you disbelieved it, as it was inconsistent with my Humanity, my opinion of you, and the reverse of all my letters, and yet, when you found, that I had wrote to Becket,[47]your Ideas’ were rather confused; for if I had, had a proper reliance on you, I need not have applied to him; as I might have supposed, you would find some means to secure my letters, if violent measures had been the Widows Plan; but, that you, was perfectly easy as to that matter; and imagined I should have been the same; knowing you to be my Friend—that there was a stiffness, in my calling you Mrs. James, which eat you tothe heart, particularly, when I said I could not accost you with my usual Freedom—What had you done to create reserve, & distance? and had my letter concluded in the same style, you should have believed I was altered, not you.”

I will endeavour to answer all this very plainly, and in the first place, I do assure you then, on my never forfeited word, that I neither by Thought, Word, or Action, ever gave the most distant Cause for such a Report, and how, or wherefore it was invented & propagated, I know no more, than I do of any one foreign Circumstance, yet unheard, or unthought of by me—it is certain, my dear James, that so far from thinking unkindly of you for your patronage of the Sternes, that you never to me, appeared in so amiable a Light—Strange; if you had not, as nothing but a sordid Principle, most narrowly selfish could have induced me to dislike an action which had its foundation in Generosity, and all the milder feminine Virtues—but my James, I will be very explicit with you, on this subject as you have introduced it yourself—the World, I fear, does not see the beauty of a compassionate disinterestedness,in the same light, that you and I do—for it has been said, and wrote to me, more than once, that my friend was betraying the Cause of her Eliza, in order to acquire the Title of Patroness, to Beauty, and Distress—I never paid the least regard to such Insinuations—for I [pers]onally supposed they had their foundation in Ignorance, Malice and that Love of Talk, which is alike common to the rash Young, and ill natured Old—I cannot believe any thing to the Prejudice of those I love my dear James—nothing which arraigns their Morals, I am sure, I cannot!—and if this knowledge, cannot secure me from Unkindness as deceit—I am, and ever must be a ready sacrifice to their Hands—for I neither can or will maintain suspicion, against the Friends I trust—I can but suffer by them, in my Peace, Property or Fame—and these are ever at the Devotion of those I love, if more consequential to them, than my Ease—I might in such Case lament the fate of my ill star’d sensibility, which led me to fix my Regards on Persons so incapable of promoting my Happiness, from not being equally conscious as myself how much pleasanter itis to love another with the most endearing affection, than to regard the Pleas of a poor Selfish Self—Some Philosophers and Moralists too, assert the proof to be impossible, but I deny the Facts, and could deduce from my own Experience, Young as I am, a thousand Instances to validate my Opinion to the most Incredulous—but of that, no more at present—for it is a Key, harsh and Untuneful, to the Notes of Peace, and might awaken every painful sense, which could set my heart a bleeding—You wonder my dear, at my writing to Becket—I’ll tell you why I did so—I had heard some Anecdotes extremely disadvantageous to the Characters of the Widow & Daughter, and that from Persons who said they had been personally acquainted with them, both in France and England—I had no reason to doubt, the Veracity of these Gentlemen Informants, they could have no view in deceiving me, or motive of putting me on my Guard, but what arose from Benevolence, which I hope is common to the greatest part of Mankind—Some part of their Intelligence, corroborated, what I had a thousand times heard, from the lips of Yorick, almost, invariablyrepeated—the Widow, I was assured was occasionally a Drinker, a Swearer, exceeding Unchaste—tho’ in point of Understanding, and finished Address supposed to be inferior to no Woman in Europe—the Secret of my Letters being in her hands, had some how become extremely Public, it was noticed to me by almost every Acquaintance I had in the C[ompany’s][48]Ships, as at this Settlement—this alarmed me—for at that time I had never Communicated the Circumstance, and could not suspect you of acting by me in any manner, which I would not have acted in by my self—One Gentleman in particular told me, that both you, and I should be deceived, if we had the least reliance on the Honor or Principles of Mrs. Sterne, for that, when she had secured as much as she could, for suppressing the Correspondence, she was capable of selling it to a Bookseller afterwards—by either refusing to restore it to you—or taking Copies of it, without our knowledge—and therefore he advised me, if I was averse to it’s Publication to take every means in my Power of Suppressing it—this influenced me towrite to Becket, and promise him a reward equal to his Expectations, if He would deliver the Letters to you (I think I proposed no other method to Him except this, but I am not sure) in case they were offered him for sale—I had a long Conflict in my own mind whether I should, or should not reveal every thing regarding this Business to you at length, I determined to keep the Secret in my own breast and that from a motive [of] Delicacy rather than good Judgment—so well do I know, how harshly it grates, to have those we love, aspersed, whether with or without Foundation—My Circumstances, as to this Family were peculiar, and require the nicest Conduct—Interest, Jealousy, a thousand Narrow Motives, might be supposed to Stimulate me! as I could not with Honor, have disclosed my Authorities for advancing many things I must have advanced, to say the half of what I had been told,—and a real or pretended respect, for myself had prompted the disclosure of them, it would have been something worse than ungenerous to have subjected the Persons to ill Will, or being called upon to prove their assertions when they had a MoralClaim to my handsome treatment at least, for whether their Intelligence was founded on, Truth or falsehood, it is not to be conceived, that they meant I should suppose them influenced by unjust Motives; consequently, it had all the Rights of well attested Facts, till I could disprove it—This I have never been able to do, tho’ all my Enquiries, when Yoricks Widow or Daughter has been named have tended to this effect, in hopes of Accomplishing my Wishes; for it cannot surely be supposed my dear James, that I am so fiend like in my nature as to wish that any Woman of Sense and Character, might be proved vicious rather than virtuous, by the confirmations of Truth or Chance—it is True my friend! I love not these Ladies! and what is more, I think, I think! Excuse me my dear—that while I preserve my Rectitude and Sensibility, I never shall!—and I would not part with them for so paltry an Exchange, as the Acquisition of New Acquaintances. “Trifles, light as air”;—You know what these are to the Jealous—and such they are, to the liberal, Ingenuous Minded, I would sooner, regulate my opinion of Man or Womensreal Worth, from their Conduct in Trivial Matters, than I would from their grand efforts to attain a Name or Character.—Ambition, Lust of Praise, Interest, Pride, a thousand sordid affections, may stimulate, in the one Case—but the other is of too humble a Nature to affect Glare; broad Day light is not necessary to it; for few, very, very few, have that sense, which is capable of feeling, a Grace, a Manner, & Decorum, beyond the fixed & settled rules of Vice & Virtue—consequently, when such an Attention to the Minutiæ is uniformly practised, by Male or Female, its source must be in the Heart, from a preferable love to Goodness only—How I do, more than Admire, a Creature so Characterized! I would almost suffer Martyrdom, to see such Perfection in my only Child! and if I live to be her Monitress it shall be the Study of my Life to make her capable of it——My dear Friend, that Stiffness you complain’d of when I called you Mrs. James, & said I could not accost you with my usual Freedom Entirely arose from depression of Spirits, too natural to the Mortified, when severe Disappointments gall the sense—Youhad told me that Sterne was no more—I had heard it before; but this conformation [sic] of it sorely afflicted me; for I was almost an Idolator of His Worth, while I fancied Him the Mild, Generous, Good Yorick, We had so often thought Him to be—to add to my regrets for his loss—his Widow had my letters in her Power, (I never entertained a good opinion of her) and meant to subject me to Disgrace & Inconvenience by the Publication of them—You knew not the contents of these letters, and it was natural for you to form the worst judgment of them, when those who had seen ’em reported them, unfavorably, and were disposed to dislike me on that account—My dear Girl! had I not cause to feel humbled so circumstanced—and can you wonder at my sensations communicating themselves to my Pen? You cannot on reflection—for such are the Emotions of the Human Heart, that they must influence human Actions, while Truth and Nature, are unsubdued—I do not, I assure you my dear James, I never did, think you acted by me other than the kindest part throughout this whole Transaction with the Sternes—I lamentyour attachment to them, but I only lament it for your sake, in case Lydia, is rather speciously attractive than mildly amiable; wch. I have heard Insinuated—whatever cause, I may have to dislike them on my own account, I can have none to do so on Yours—While they preserve an Empire in Your Breast from their superiority in Merit principally—but beware of Deceivers my dear Woman, the best Hearts are most liable to be imposed on, by them—Frank, Generous, Kind themselves—they naturally suppose, Each Companion of specious semblance, a Kindred Spirit, till dire Experience has convinced them, that Hypocrisy can assume all Shapes meet for her Purpose:—do not suppose my Caution arises from any thing but affection; for tho’ I hint at Counterfeits to you, I never suffer any thing of the kind to escape me to others—On the contrary I ever speak of both Widow & Daughter as you or they, might wish me to speak, when expatiating on the subject,—for I have no Idea my James, that Eliza’s opinion is to be the Standard of other Peoples, well as I think of it in the main—and however Angry I may bewith them in my heart, I should be very sorry to have People I esteemed think ill of them—as a proof of which, I’ll transcribe for you, part of a letter I wrote on the subject the other Day, to Colonel Campbell in Bengal—who is a great Favorite of Mine, had sent me six hundred Rupees, which He had raised by Contributions for their use, and hinted[49]his wishes to know something of the Ladies—as He meant to visit England shortly.—

“I sensibly feel the Exertions of your kindness in behalf of my Friends Widow & Daughter—and assure myself, if you ever know them, that your own Complacency will administer a Reward from the Consciousness of having served two very Amiable Persons; as well Educated Women, of Talents, and Sensibility, are, I believe of all others, the most serious objects of a Generous Compassion, when obliged to Descend from an Easy Elegance, their Native Sphere, to the Mortifying Vicissitudes of Neglect & pecuniary Embarrassments. The Ladies, are no Strangers to your Character; and I please myself with the Notion of their proving avery agreable addition to your Acquaintance, when you are at all disposed to cultivate Theirs. Mrs. Sterne, I have heard spoke of as one of the most sensible Women in Europe—she is nearly related to the Mrs. Montague, whose Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare has reflected so much Honor, on the reputation of Female Judgment & Generosity—which circumstance renders it probable, that she, (Mrs. Sterne) may possess equal Powers from Inheritance—Miss Sterne is supposed to have a portion of each Parents best Qualities—the Sensibility & frolic Vivacity of Yorick, most happily blended in her Composition—Lively by Nature, Youth & Education, she cannot fail to please every Spectator of capacious Mind; but much, I fear, that, the Shandy Race will be Extinct with this Accomplished Young Woman—for She’s of the Muses Train, and too much attached to them and filial Duties, to think of a change of name with much Complacency—How is it Colonel (You are a Casius—& can tell me) that a Woman seldom, very seldom, judges favorably of the WeddedLife, if once seriously attached to those Moral Doctrines & Poetic Flights—so truely captivating to a Muse like Apprehension? And yet the Nine are said to aid the Votary’s of Love—Apollo himself, sacrifices at Cupid’s Shrine, and Verse Men of all Ages, have at some period of their Lives, been prone to follow his great Example.—I fear, I fear: that the Details of Experience, joined to a little more than ordinary Penetration may be the true Source of their Dislike to Masculine Subjection.”

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