LETTER FROM C. CARTLINGE TO JOSEPH MEIR SENT VIA POSTAL PACKET [LIVERPOOL SHIP LETTER] FROM PHILADELPHIA -- SEPT. 16, 1832
Single
Sheet
[POSTAL MARK]
Mr. Joseph Meir
Pitt Street
Burslem Potteries
P. Packet ]
]
Staffordshire
16. Sep. ]
LIVERPOOL
SHIP LETTER
---------
Philadelphia, 7th Sep 1832
Mr. Joseph Meir
My dear Friend
I have this day received yours of the 20th June, filled up by my wife,
and you cannot easily conceive the pleasure with which I perused
it. I feel gratified with the intelligence which it conveys on
church matters, but more particularly do I feel interested and blessed
in the reflection which it affords me that other prayers besides those
of my family are urged for me at a throne of grace. This will be
an additional support to me when my faith languishes, serve to quicken
me when I am cold and careless, and add strength to my confidence in
seasons of danger & peril.
I had been this day, before I received yours,
arranging to write to you. The claims of Friendship seemed to
require from me a letter. And I can assure you the difficulty of
writing does not arise from a deficiency of matter, but rather from a
redundancy of it. The details must of course be reserved for
collegial intercourse by our own firesides where I trust we shall have
ample opportunities, before the writer closes, of entering more fully
into particulars.
Though business was my ostensible object in this
country I have not buried myself in it entirely. Neither have I
been inattentive to the manner and character of the people, the
novelties of the city, or the stupendous works of nature as they are
developed in the New World. England compared with America is like
a world in miniature. Every thing in nature here is on a more
magnificent scale. Rivers, forests, mountains, valleys seem to be
interminable and I can assure you that to see such scenery is more
impressive than to read about it. It excites new emotions in the
soul such as to give perhaps some faint idea of the wonder and
interest with which we shall survey the great arcana of nature when,
freed from the clog of mortality, we soar to "boundless worlds
unknown." The sun shines here with more unclouded lustre, the
moon and stars with more brightness, and the atmosphere is beautifully
clear and transparent. But when a storm approaches, the heavens
gather a portentous blackness, enough to alarm a stranger, the rain
descends in heavy streams and with a fearful noise, the lightning -- no
not lightning, but light -- the electric fluid in a state of ignition
fills the atmosphere vesting on the bosom of the earth like the hanging
fire of a fouling piece revealing in the night season the whole
landscape of city, forests, hills, the river, sea and ships with vivid
distinctness.
All however is not excellence in this country --
even in nature itself. Perfection, as Dr. Beattie says, was not
made for man below. The sudden & violent changes of
temperature and the extremes of heat and cold are prejudiced to
health, and when you find a place where all the beauties of nature
appear to be gathered together -- a very paradise in appearance, you
will probably be told that disease in the form of chills, fever and
ague haunts the spot.
In one respect my circumstances in this country have
been very different to what I anticipated. When I arrived here I
had no purpose of making myself known to any religious people, but
expected that I should pursue my lonely way to the house of God without
sympathy or company. I was afraid lest some might know me as a
preacher and that I might be asked to preach. So I did not bring
a written idea with me from home. In Boston nobody knew me and I
visited every denomination, but in all the other cities I have been
known as a preacher by some means or other. Perhaps this has been
a blessing to me for it has afforded me much delightful communion with
the people of God, the friendship of many excellent ministers, and many
proofs of affectionate regard. The Lord has been merciful in
thus opening a way, probably in answer to the prayers which have been
offered for me, for my own spirituality and comfort even against my
resolution.
Methodism is very popular in America. This
gave me the opportunity of visiting several places with more interest
that I could otherwise have done. The chaplains of Congress, the
Navy, Penitentiarys [sic], Prisons etc are mostly Methodist preachers
paid by the government. At Phila[delphia] I made an arrangement
to preach at the City Prison to the convicts but could not attend to
it. At Washington I enjoyed to preach at the Navy-yard
church. At Baltimore I delivered a lecture to the female
convicts of the Penitentiary, and at New York I harrangued [sic] an
audience in the Hall of Science -- the arena in which Robert Owen and
Miss Wright poured forth the tides of their eloquence in the cause of
infidelity.
At Washington I had a reception beyond my
circumstances and talent. I was introduced to several members of
the Cabinet and to the President of the United States [Andrew Jackson]
with whom I had a very agreeable interview at the house of state [The
White House]. Several evening parties amongst my own immediate
friends (made friends by this visit) were got up to gratify me, rural
excursions up the rivers and amongst the wild and romantic wonders of
nature were planned and executed, and when it was announced that I was
to preach in the city the churches at which I preached were crowded.
I mentioned evening parties. At these,
magistrates, merchants, and officers of Government were among the
guests, and music, beauty, and social cheerfulness lent their charms,
yet nothing of vanity much less irreligion [sic] was to be
observed. You would not suppose that the individuals I have named
would furnish very improving society. They would not in England
but in Washington the most delightful and improving society may be
selected out of such materials. It seems the fashion to have
ministers at such parties whose presence (for the American Ministry are
singularly serious) has doubtless the effect of repelling any
extraordinary lightness among the younger portion of the guests, and
every party that I attended was broke up with praise and prayer.
The Americans are quite a different people to the
English. All here are free, bold and self confident. Wealth
does not make its po[s]sessors insolent, nor poverty its subjects
mean. Each gives his opinion with as much assurance as if he were
the only person of consequence and he allows every body else to do the
same -- or rather every body else claims and exercises the right
without question. You might be in company half a day and have no
idea which is a rich and which is a poor man. In the church this
is particularly the case. I repeatedly led the class of a poor
man, of very poor talents, who had nevertheless several Members of
Congress and the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court [John Marshall] --
one of the most eloquent advocates in the world when he was a
Counsellor, amongst the members.
I have neither time nor room to enter into details
else it would be an easy matter for me to fill a volume. Almost
every day might afford the history of an adventure. In the hot
weather I made a journey to some of the slave states in the District of
Columbia, Virginia and Maryland. I saw the slaves cultivating the
fields of Indian corn, tobacco etc and conversed freely with them and
their owners. Several of these things, if time offers, I must
throw together in the form of a narrative for the amusement of a friend
or two on my return. When you make known my remembrance of my
esteemed Friends in Burslem, Newbery, Ball, Withingham, Read, to whom I
wrote, I. Hawley, I. Cartlinge, T. Rigby, Tunkinson, Mitchell, Emaley,
I. Tunnicliff, I. Ball etc, some of them may possibly wish to read my
letter, but you will correctly judge that several matters herein stated
would be better confined to our families, as people generally talk so
much and give these matters a publicity which they do not deserve.
My wife informs me that Mr. Wase wishes to write to
me before I return. Mr. Stubbs will forward his letter which
however must be wrote [sic] soon or it will be too late. Please
to direct my wife to make my particular remembrance to them (the
Wase's) & to all the Sneyd Green folks. You will probably
allow my wife to read this as I do not write to her by this Packet.
I still find religion in the language of our late
esteemed author, -- language which I often think of, to be "The final
centre of repose -- the goal to which all things tend: which gives to
time all its importance -- to eternity its glories: apart from which
man is a shadow -- his very existence a riddle, and the stupendous
scenes which surround him as unmeaning as the leaves which the sybil
scattered to the wind." I am not sufficiently alive to it.
Now and then I get aroused. On Sunday evening last I preached at
the Kensington Church here. When I arrived the church was
crowded, the aisles were jambed [sic] and numbers were standing about
the door. The appearance of the congregation animated me
exceedingly and I preached with liberty and fervour [sic]. I
spent the evening afterwards with Isaac Child, the Synas, and Samuel
Moore. They are all well and enquired about you. Isaac is
an Elder and is much esteemed in the church. He is improved in
address and conversational powers a good deal. The family are
[sic] in comfortable circumstances.
That I might write you a long letter I took up an
old iron pen to write small. It scratches the paper and I can
scarcely move it along. I hope however you will be able to make
it all out.
You say that Mrs. M. [Meir] was poorly. Let me
hope that is by this time better. I was somewhat astonished to
hear of the death of Mrs. Reynolds. Her husband seemed less
likely to live than she. The cholera here has been very
alarming. While I was in Baltimore twenty died in one of the
alms houses in one day. It has nearly disappeared and conidence
is returning. Trade is bad from several causes. I have done
pretty well however in business. Many of our customers have been
supplied from your works at a very cheap rate -- 2 1/2 p.cent less than
we ever sold, and I have been obliged to drop our goods in consequence,
to the same price.
My best regards to Mrs. M. and your little folks, and with prayers for your welfare,
I am,
Yours affectionately,
C. Cartlinge
P.S Isaac Child came to see me last night. I read him
your letter, and told him I was writing to you in return. He begs
his particular remembrance to you. The political news from Europe
is anxiously looked for here. There seems to be a general
impression war is about inevitable. Intelligence is just here of
the success of Don Pedro. The hopes of the people here rest on
the governments of France and England in the present conflicting
interests of the continental powers.
8th Sep ---
15th Sep. The letter was too late for the last Packet. Have
had time to write to my wife today. No news of any
importance. Am still in good health and remain, Yours. C.C.
Courtesy of the Bruce C. Cooper Collection
