ticeship), and give him twenty moidores as a present from me towards helping him on his beginning the world. I believe I shall have occasion for six hundred pounds English before this, year's income is paid by the farmers of my deanery. I must therefore desire you to speak to Mess. Swift, &c. to give me credit for said sum in London about three months hence, in case I have occasion to draw for it, and I shall willingly pay their customary interest for the same till the farmers pay it to them, which I hope you will order punctually to be done by the first of June. Direct for me în Rhode-island, and enclose your letter in a cover to Thomas Corbet, esq. at the Admiralty-office in London, who will always forward my letters by the first opportunity. Adieu: I write in great haste. A copy of my charter was sent to Dr. Ward by Dr. Clayton: if it be not arrived, when you go to London, write out of the charter the clause relating to my abAdieu once more.

sence.

Er. 23.-Newport in Rhode-island, April 24, 1729. I can by this time say something to you, from my own experience, of this place and people. The inhabitants are of a mixed kind, consisting of many sects and subdivisions of sects. Here are four sorts of anabaptists, besides presbyterians, quakers, independents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere, the people living peaceably with their neighbours of whatsoever persuasion. They all agree in one point, that the church of England is the second best. The climate is like that of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter than I have known it every where north of Rome. The spring is late but to make amends, they assure me the autumns are the finest and longest in the world; and the summers are much pleasanter than those of Italy by all accounts, forasmuch as the grass continues green, which it doth not there. This island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising grounds, hath plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful landscapes of rocks and promontories and adjacent lands. The provisions are very good; so are the fruits, which are quite neglected, though vines sprout up of themselves to an extraordinary size, and seem as natural to this

soil as to any I ever saw. The town of Newport contains about

six thousand souls, and is the most thriving flourishing place in all America for its bigness. It is very pretty, and pleasantly situated. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first sight of the town and its harbour. I could give you some hints that

may be of use to you, if you were disposed to take advice: but of all men in the world I never found encouragement to give you any. I have heard nothing from you or any of my friends in England or Ireland, which makes me suspect my letters were in one of the vessels that were wrecked. I write in great haste, and have no time to say a word to my brother Robin: let him know we are in good health. Take care that my draughts are duly honoured, which is of the greatest importance to my credit here; and if I can serve you in these parts, you may command yours, &c.

Ex. 24.-Newport in Rhode-island, June 12, 1729. Being informed that an inhabitant of this country is on the point of going for Ireland, I would not omit writing to you. The winter, it must be allowed, was much sharper than the usual winters in Ireland, but not at all sharper than I have known them in Italy. To make amends, the summer is exceeding delightful: and if the spring begins late, the autumn ends proportionably later than with you, and is said to be the finest in the world. I snatch this moment to write, and have time only to add that I have got a son, who, I thank God, is likely to live.-I find it hath been reported in Ireland, that we purpose settling here: I must desire you to discountenance any such report. The truth is, if the King's bounty were paid in, and the charter could be removed hither, I should like it better than Bermuda. But if this were mentioned before the payment of said money, it might perhaps hinder it, and defeat all our designs. As to what you say of Hamilton's proposal, I can only answer at present by a question, viz. whether it be possible for me in my absence to be put in possession of the deanery of Dromore? Desire him to make that point clear, and you shall hear further from me.

Ex. 25.-Rhode-island, March 9, 1730. My situation hath been so uncertain, and is like to continue so till I am clear about the receipt of his Majesty's bounty, and in consequence thereof, of the determination of my associates, that you are not to wonder at my having given no categorical answer to the proposal you made in relation to Hamilton's deanery, which his death hath put an end to. If I had returned, I should perhaps have been under some temptation to have changed. But as my design still continues to wait the event, and go to Bermuda as soon as I can get associates and money, which my friends are now soliciting in London, I shall in such case persist in my first resolution of not holding any deanery beyond the limited time.—I live here upon land that I have purchased, and in a farm-house that I have built

in this island: it is fit for cows and sheep, and may be of good use in supplying our college at Bermuda. Among my delays and disappointments I thank God I have two domestic comforts that are very agreeable, my wife and my little son, both which exceed my expectations, and fully answer all my wishes.Messrs. James, Dalton, and Smilert, &c. are at Boston, and have been there these four months. My wife and I abide by Rhode-island, preferring quiet and solitude to the noise of a great town, notwithstanding all the solicitations that have been used to draw us thither.—I have desired Mac Manus, in a letter to Dr. Ward, to allow twenty pounds per ann. for me towards the poor-house now on foot for clergymen's widows in the diocess of Derry.

Ex. 26.-Rhode-island, May 7, 1730. Last week I received a packet from you by the way of Philadelphia, the postage whereof amounted to above four pounds of this country money. I thank you for the enclosed pamphlet, which in the main 1 think very seasonable and useful. It seems to me that, in computing the sum total of the loss by absentees, you have extended some articles beyond their due proportion-e. g. when you charge the whole income of occasional absentees in the third class; and that you have charged some articles twice-e. g. when you make distinct articles for lawsuits 90007. and for attendance on employments and other business 80007. both which seem already charged in the third class. The tax you propose seems very reasonable, and I wish it may take effect for the good of the kingdom, which will be obliged to you if it can be brought about. That it would be the interest of England to allow a free trade to Ireland, I have been thoroughly convinced, ever since my being in Italy and talking with the merchants there; and have upon all occasions endeavoured to convince English gentlemen thereof, and have convinced some both in and out of parliament; and I remember to have discoursed with you at large upon the subject when I was last in Dublin. Your hints for setting up new manufactures seem reasonable: but the spirit of projecting is low in Ireland.-Now as to my own affair, I must tell you I have no intention of continuing in these parts, but in order to settle the college his Majesty hath been pleased to found in Bermuda: and I want only the payment of the King's grant to transport myself

* Mr. Prior's celebrated List of the Absentees of Ireland, published in 1729.

and family thither. I am now employing the interest of my friends in England for that purpose, and I have wrote in the most pressing manner either to get the money paid, or at least such an authentic answer as I may count upon and may direct me what course I am to take. Dr. Clayton indeed hath wrote me word, that he hath been informed by a very good friend of mine, who had it from a very great man, that the money will not be paid. But I cannot think a hearsay at second or third hand to be a proper answer for me to act upon. I have therefore suggested to the Doctor, that it might be proper for him to go himself to the treasury with the letters patent containing the grant in his hands, and there make his demand in form. I have also wrote to others to use their interest at court; though indeed one would have thought all solicitation at an end when once I had obtained a grant under his Majesty's hand and the broad seal of England. As to my own going to London and soliciting in person, I think it reasonable first to see what my friends can do; and the rather because I shall have small hopes that my solicitation will be regarded more than theirs. Be assured I long to know the upshot of this matter, and that upon an explicit refusal I am determined to return home, and that it is not at all my thoughts to continue abroad and hold my deanery. It is well known to many considerable persons in England, that I might have had a dispensation for holding it in my absence during life, and that I was much pressed to it; but I resolutely declined it: and if our college had taken place as soon as I once hoped it would, I should have resigned before this time. A little after my coming to this island, I entertained some thoughts of applying to his Majesty (when Dr. Clayton had received the 20,000l.) to trauslate our college hither; but have since seen cause to lay aside all thoughts of that matter. I do assure you bonâ fide that I have no intention to stay here longer than I can get an authentic answer from the government, which I have all the reason in the world to expect this summer: for, upon all private accounts, I should like Derry better than New England. As to my being in this island, I think I have already informed you that I have been at very great expense in purchasing land and stock here, which might supply the defects of Bermuda in yielding those provisions to our college, the want of which was made a principal objection against its situation in that island. To conclude, as I am here in order to execute a design addressed for by parliament, and set on foot by his Majesty's royal charter, I think myself obliged to wait the

event, whatever course is taken in Ireland about my deanery. I have wrote to both the Bishops of Raphoe and Derry: but letters, it seems, are of uncertain passage: your last was half a year in coming, and I have had some a year after their date, though often in two or three months, and sometimes less. I must desire you to present my duty to both their Lordships, and acquaint them with what I have now wrote to you, in answer to the kind message from my Lord Bishop of Derry conveyed by your hands, for which pray return my humble thanks to his Lordship. My wife gives her service to you. She hath been lately ill of a miscarriage, but is now, I thank God, recovered. Our little son is great joy to us: we are such fools as to think him the most perfect thing in its kind that we ever saw.

Ex. 27.-Newport, July 20, 1750. Since my last of May 7, I have not had one line from the persons to whom I had wrote to make the last instances for the 20,000l. This I impute to an accident that we hear happened to a man-of-war, as it was coming down the river bound for Boston, where it was expected some months ago, and is now daily looked for with the new governor. The newspapers of last February mentioned Dr. Clayton's being made bishop. I wish him joy of his preferment, since I doubt we are not likely to see him in this part of the world.

The settlement of affairs with his fellow-executor Mr. Marshal, with a Mr. Partinton Vanhomrigh, and with the creditors of Mrs. Esther Vanhomrigh, in London, involved our author in a great deal of trouble for near four years. His letters to Mr. T. Prior are full of this business, which cannot at this day be interesting to any body. It is thought proper however to subjoin a few extracts from them, as a proof how strongly he felt this embarrassment in the midst of his Bermuda project.

Er. 28.-London, Dec. 8, 1724. Provided you bring my affair with Partinton to a complete issue before Christmas-day come twelvemonth, by reference or otherwise, that I may have my dividend, whatever it is, clear, I do hereby promise you to increase the premium I promised you before by its fifth part, whatever it amounts to.

Ex. 29-July 20, 1725. Our South-sea stock is confirmed to be what I already informed you, 8807. somewhat more or less. But before you get Partinton and Marshal to sign the letters of