CHAPTER XIII.
Preachers.—Divine Service.—Divisions of the Bible.—Funeral Service.—Burial in Cities.—Absurd Interments.—Monuments.—Private Mausoleums.—Harmless Absurdities.—Church Endowments.—State of the Clergy.—Religious Communities.—Admission Fees to Institutions.—Ecclesiastical Societies.
It happened in the earlier part of their visit, when the travellers were less familiar with the peculiarities of the Southland phraseology, that they were inquiring one day whether there was in the neighbourhood where they then were any preacher of more than ordinary celebrity, and were surprised at being answered that there were no preachers within two hundred miles. As they had, before this, attended public worship, they perceived at once that there must be some misapprehension. They found that “a preacher” denotes—according to its primitive sense—what we understand by a missionary among the heathen. “Expounding,” “lecturing,” “discoursing,” are the terms used by them to denote what we call “preaching.”
When the difficulty was surmounted which they felt at first in following what was said, from the novelty to them of the dialect, they were very well pleased with some discourses they heard, which appeared to them sensible, pious, and instructive; but they never heard any one who came up to the idea of what we call “a fine preacher,” or “a very nice man,” for the reason already mentioned in the notice of their parliamentary debates.
The strangers were at first puzzled by another peculiarity which they met with in their attendance on divine service. The minister referred, not to the chapter and verse of any book of Scripture, but to the page and line, or rather to what are called pages and lines; that is, certain equal divisions, which are indeed the actual pages and lines of their large editions of the Bible, but of course do not correspond with those of a different size. These artificial pages and lines, as they may be called, are marked by horizontal (P. 25,
─) and vertical (L. 5.
│) lines, respectively. The origin of the custom, it seems, was, that their first edited translation having been paged, and subsequent editions being, for some time, fac-similes of it in point of size, the custom grew up,—indeed there is reason to think it was designedly encouraged,—of making the references to pages and lines; and these same arbitrary divisions were accordingly retained in subsequent editions. Generally, though not always, the chapters and verses are marked in the margin, for the convenience of scholars who may wish to consult some of the old editions of the Bible in the learned languages, or who may be reading, in old editions, some works of the earlier divines containing references to those divisions. For their own use, they consider their method as preferable to ours, inasmuch as their divisions are exactly equal; serve perfectly for the use intended,—that of facility of reference;—and carry on the face of them a plain indication that they are designed for no other use, and therefore cannot mislead the reader into the notion of their having a connexion with the sense, and being the work of the sacred writers, or designed by editors as a suitable distribution of the matter.
The funeral service varies in a slight degree in the rituals of the several churches; but in one point they all agree,—that in the prayers used, and in any discourse delivered on the occasion, no allusion is made to the particular individual deceased. The shortness and uncertainty of life generally,—a future state, and the requisite preparation for it,—with other such general topics, are the only ones allowed to be introduced. Any mention of, or allusion to a particular individual, in the way of panegyric or otherwise, on such an occasion, would be regarded as invidious and highly indecorous.
“When a man,” they said, “has departed this life, to pronounce upon his condition in another world, or to pray that that condition may be altered, we regard as presumptuous, and especially unsuitable in a Christian congregation assembled for a religious purpose.”
Their cemeteries are never contiguous to their places of ordinary religious worship, nor within any of their towns or villages; but at some little distance, and generally within, or adjoining, some park or other public pleasure-ground. They imagined it must be deleterious to the health of the Europeans to inhabit towns, the site of which consists in great measure of stratum upon stratum of decomposing animal matter, continually renewed and continually stirred up.
“We are well aware,” they said, “what gave rise to the practice. It was the notion entertained by our ancestors (and, it should seem, by some of their European descendants) that demons are scared away by the sound of church-bells, by lustrations of holy-water, and the like; and that the departed, accordingly, derive from such things some kind of comfort and protection. We hold, however, (and we hoped our European brethren had long since come to the same conclusion,) that the only injuries of which a corpse is in any danger are from the plough or the spade, the carrion-crow, the swine, or the wolf;” (so they call the Dingo, the New Holland wild dog;) “and that protection from these is to be found in stone walls, boards, and mounds of earth, not in any religious ceremonies.
“As for spiritual danger, we conceive that the body becomes exempt from everything of that kind, precisely at the moment life departs from it; and, accordingly, that religious appliances then employed resemble the practice of the savages, who clothe the dead body of a friend in the best skin robes they can procure, and bury it, surrounded with a store of food, and with all the implements of hunting and fishing. If these poor heathens were to go a step beyond this in absurdity,—if they were to refuse to supply a famished companion while living with needful food, clothing, and shelter, and then, as soon as he was dead, and no longer sensible of cold and hunger, were to begin to supply his dead body with provisions, which it could no longer use,—they would then be treating him, as some of our European forefathers treated themselves; who seldom or never, during their lives, frequented a house of worship to any profitable purpose, while they might have derived benefit from their attendance; but reflected with satisfaction on the idea that their dead bodies would be brought into the house of worship, and perhaps interred there, as soon as the time should have passed when their presence there would be of any avail.
“It is partly in order to guard against any relapse into such superstitions that we make it a rule never even to bring a dead body within the walls of a place of worship.”
There are no monuments in their burial-grounds beyond plain slabs, containing the name of the person whose remains are interred, with the necessary dates, &c. But in other places they have monuments of the nature of cenotaphs, in memory of persons who have been in any manner so distinguished as to be allowed this posthumous honour, by the direction, or with the permission, of the civil authorities.
Statues are sometimes erected, in places of public resort, to men of high eminence: but usually the memorial consists in an inscription (sometimes accompanied with decorative sculpture) placed on the house in which the person in question was born, or lived, or died; or on any public building, such as a college, or library, or the like, which was in any way connected with his useful labours. In all cases, any monument so placed as to meet the public eye, cannot be erected without the permission of the proper authorities; whose approval of the inscription, decorations, and all the particulars, is essentially requisite.
“If a man chooses,” said they, “to erect within his own private house or garden the most extravagant mausoleum in honour of some ancestor, and to cover it with inscriptions of the most fulsome and groundless panegyric, he is quite at liberty to do so. We do not profess to make laws to prevent a man from playing the fool in private; but whatever is obtruded on the public eye is fairly placed under public control. And monuments,” they added, “when thus duly regulated, constitute a useful kind of record of departed worth, and of the several degrees and kinds of it; the utility of which record would be greatly impaired if mixed up and interlined, as it were, with the aberrations of the private partiality, or ostentation, or absurdity of individuals.
“It is the same,” they said, “with titles of honour, and decorations of office borne by the living. If a man has a fancy to wear in private a dressing-gown decorated like a robe of state,—to have his easy-chair in his study made after the fashion of a regal throne,—to make his own family in private call him your lordship or your majesty, or to amuse himself at his own home with any such folly, the laws would not take cognizance of his harmless absurdities; but if he were to do all this in public, he would not be allowed thus to go about to break down all distinctions of rank, dignity, and office, by assuming what did not belong to him. Now, we consider that monumental honours, when displayed before the public, are a kind of public posthumous dignities; over which, accordingly, the Public has a just right of control.”
All the churches are possessed of endowments (greater or less); generally, though not exclusively, land, which are held by bodies of trustees (variously constituted), recognised as corporations; these receive and distribute the revenues, and, in some churches, have the nomination to benefices; in others, this is placed in their hands conjointly with the overseer (somewhat answering to bishop), or council of overseers, of the church.
What is called among us the ‘voluntary system,’—the maintenance of the minister by the voluntary contributions of his congregation,—is not only unknown, but distinctly prohibited, in all the churches, by a regulation which forbids the minister even to accept any kind of gratuity from his flock, or to derive any profit from the letting of seats, or any other such source.
Dr. Campbell, a clergyman and theological professor at one of their seminaries, from whom among others their information on these subjects was derived, observed, that he was not sure (as the experiment never had been—and he hoped never would be—tried among them) whether any of their States would even tolerate a religion whose ministers were to be maintained by the congregations as hired servants.
“A pastor,” said he, “appointed by the people,—which is bad enough,—or removable by the people,—which is still much worse,—or supported by the gifts of the people,—which is far worst of all,—has everything to encounter that can tend to make him what he should not be; and that can expose him to suspicion of this, even if undeserved; and that can lower his character, and lessen his deserved influence, if he is such as he ought to be. No plan,” he added, “could possibly be devised more calculated for debasing and corrupting both the clergy and people, and for perverting religion, and turning it into a source of evil, instead of good, to both. The people would be taught to seek for, and their pastor (I should rather say, their servant) tempted to supply,—instead of honest and profitable instruction and seasonable admonitions,—flattery to their prejudices,—indulgence to their vices,—encouragement to their superstitions,—assistance and counsel in political schemes and party machinations,—amusing theatrical excitement to itching ears,—and flattering delusions, as opiates to the soul, instead of wholesome truth.”
On its being remarked, in reply, that many persons in England contend for the benefit of making a minister’s income depend, in some degree at least, on his own exertions, and are accustomed to adduce instances of the inefficiency of some whose revenues are secure and independent, Dr. Campbell replied that it is true such instances do occasionally occur, and are much to be deplored.
“But, after all,” added he, “we ought to remember that, bad as it is for a minister to be useless, useless is the best thing such a minister can be. A clergyman who is capable of being stimulated to exertion only by motives of interest, and is careless and apathetic when that is wanting, had much better be left careless. When gain does rouse such a man to exertion, he will most likely exert himself as a demagogue or a mountebank. A man whom neither conscientious motives, nor desire for the respect and esteem of good men, can rouse to efficiency in doing good, is very likely to become an active doer of evil, if he have any dormant energies and talents that can be roused at all.”
On inquiring whether the governments, accordingly, insist on paying all ministers of religion who are not otherwise provided for, the travellers were informed that Government never pays any. Occasionally, indeed, grants of state-lands are made to various public institutions, and to religious ones among the rest; but this is always by a distinct act of each legislature in reference to the circumstances of each case that is brought before them. But any persons who can raise among themselves, and from their well-wishers, funds towards building and endowing chapels, &c. and who prefer forming themselves into a distinct religious community, never find any considerable difficulty in obtaining a charter of incorporation for such trustees as they appoint. And it has often happened that, by accessions of donations or bequests from time to time, and also of members, some, both ecclesiastical and also academical corporations, have, from small beginnings, grown into considerable importance.
“The voluntary system,” said Dr. Campbell, “which we condemn, is not voluntary gifts towards a common fund for an endowment in perpetuity, but voluntary payments from time to time to a particular minister for his yearly or weekly maintenance by his people,—by those, I was going to say, who are placed under him; but, it should rather be, under whom he is placed.”
It is a custom, it seems, for those admitted on any academical or ecclesiastical foundation as partakers of the endowment, to contribute themselves towards the fund, by paying a certain admission-fee, as it may be called, on entrance. In the greater part of the institutions whose endowments are sufficient for their objects this is little more than a nominal payment, a sort of ceremonial acknowledgment, trifling in amount: but in less amply endowed societies it is something considerable; in those whose common funds are still smaller, it is more; and in some,—chiefly such as are in their infancy,—a man has to pay, on being admitted a fellow, an associate, a pastor, or whatever it may be, of one of these colleges, or churches, &c. a sum equal to, or even exceeding, what his maintenance derived from the society will probably cost, according to the principles of annuity-office calculations. In such a case, the advantages sought by the man or woman who is a candidate for admission (for there are several female institutions of this kind) are the pleasure and honour of being admitted into a society, perhaps in high repute for the intelligence, worth, knowledge, and agreeableness of its members,—(the same objects that make it in England often a matter of earnest competition to be elected into a particular club,)—the conveniences, sometimes, of a common library, museum, table, &c.; so that a person who may have paid more than he or she will actually cost the society, may yet have made a very good bargain in the purchase of a comfortable and respectable maintenance; and, lastly, the advantage of the purchase of a kind of annuity; paying down a certain sum, and being secured, as far as a decent subsistence, against all chances, by insuring a maintenance during life, or during single-life, according to the regulations of each society.
The fellowships, &c. of colleges are, for the most part, held during celibacy only; and some of them make little or no provision for any but those actually resident. Persons admitted on the foundation of ecclesiastical societies, as ministers or other officers, receive a stipend for life, unless regularly expelled for misconduct.
There are several further particulars relating to these matters, on which, as has been already mentioned, Mr. Sibthorpe hoped to obtain fuller information.
CHAPTER XIV.
Letter of Paul Wilkins.
We shall close these extracts with a letter, which we have had permission to publish, from one of the exploring party, Paul Wilkins, the sailor formerly mentioned, written after his return to Sidney to his parents in England. Our reader will perceive from this letter that a part only of the travellers had returned; two of them having determined to prolong their stay in the newly-discovered colony, in order to gain a fuller acquaintance with its singular customs and institutions.
The letter is printed exactly from the manuscript, because, if any alterations had been made,—even though extending only to the style and orthography,—or any omissions even of the most trivial matters, the reader might have been left in doubt what degree of liberty might have been taken with the original. And errors in language or in spelling, such as may be expected in the composition of a person of ordinary education in humble life, can excite no disgust or contempt; and must disarm criticism, when occurring in a familiar letter designed for the perusal of his own domestic circle, by one who never thought of aspiring to come before the public as an author. Taking into account the station and circumstances of the writer, there is nothing, we conceive, that will be thought to do discredit to his head or heart.
“Sydney, Novr. 23rd, 1835.
“Dear Father & Mother
“This comes with my Love, hoping to find you a live & all well, as it leaves me thank God, which I never expected sometimes to come Back a live from a long and peralous Expidition into the Interier. But am happy to say we suckseded & have been to the most Wonderfull country I ever see in all my Voyages. I sho’d never have done if I was to go to tell you every thing, but as their is a Vessel just going to Sail, and I can send this by a safe Hand I take up my pen to give you some a count of it.
“I hardly know how to be gin my Head is so full of all the queer things I see. The two Lieut. Smiths who you remember my shewing you one of them last time I was at Home, fine dashing felowes they are as ever trod a plank, they and Mr. Sibthorp of the Colony and Mr. Jones, they ingag’d me as a tendant to exploar in the Interier on a new plan of their own. They said as no great Navigable rivers has been found by coasting Expiditions, the only chance was to try in land, and if they met with any considarable Stream to follow it till it come either to the Sea or a great Lake which some thought there is a great in land Sea in the Interier. So says they cout kick out they wou’d find wether their is one or no. So off we sat & took with us the frame work of a Canoe flat bottomed by reason of the Shallows were we was to Embark. And when we come to the Lake which it is a kind of swamp like, more weeds than Water, we put our canoe to gether & coverd it with Bark of Trees & got in our Stores. Their was no room for much Provisions but we trusted to our Guns & Fishing tackle, all the Party are pretty good shots, & your Humble Servant no bad Hand tho’ I say it at striking Fish or Hook & Line.
“It was hard work for some days, we were like a dab chick scufling & flutering along among the Flags & Mud, & then we got into clearer water & made Sail at a good rate, & then into a River which we thought this will bring us to the sea, But no we got into more Lakes & swamps, and then river a gain & so on, & then we had to get out and track the Canoe with Ropes to steddy its coarse along the rapids, & once we was forced to carry it overland to a void the Falls. And some times we never thought but what we sho’d be lost an starved in the Wilds, all the country round nothing but Rocks & Sands. But we all kep up a good Heart, no want of Pluck among the Gent men, and I can’t say we wanted for Vittles only going without Bread mostly thanks to the Fish & Wildfowl.
“I sho’d never have done if I was to tell you All. Well after better than a Month were do you think we come to at last, why to a Colony of White men, that had been hid like in the Wilds best part of three Hundred years & never seen no Christian peple all that time only them selves. Its true I a sure you, & its compewted theirs nearer 4 milian than three totell number of Soles in the Country. How serprised we was to see em & hear em hail us in English, for their of English Dissent mostly only some mixture of Duch & German & Swiss. Its an odd sort of English too they speak, but we got usd to it in a little wile, their lingo isnt worse than broaed Scoch or Yorkshire.
“Well you may be sure if they wonderd to see us we was wondring how they come their. And it seems they came out in former times when their was great trubles in Europe to make a settlement and live in Piece & Quiet, And their Vessels was driven on the coast, & they got a shore & landed all their stores safe, & then went up & setled in the Interier, being they found the coast unhealthy. Its a fine Country they have got to now, as big I am thinking as Great Briton & Ireland put to gether, for they arnt no ways prest for room, but make a new Setlement were they likes. They treated us very kindly in deed & seamed glad to see us as if we had been brethren like, as they say’d. And very good Towns & good Living their is among them, tho’ they arnt quite so high civilised as English Peple, as stands to Reason being they have livd so long out of the World like.
“And some queer ways they have among them to be sure, quite different from ours. Theirs not a bit of Bacca to be had for love nor money, nor Grog neither, as for Rum or Whisky or the like they dont know what it means. I usd to tell em how theyd stare if they was to come among us & see writen up every were Dealer in Tea Coffee To Bacco & Snuff, & Dealer in Spirtuos Liquors, for they havent nothing of the kind. But how ever they have good ale that I must say & Wine & Cyder to plenty, & very hospy table peple, but no way given to liquor, I never see a drunken Man all the time, & they say its like the Savages to get drunk. And theirs truth in that I can testyfy, for those Black felows will drink as long as they can stand in the Colony and longer two if they can come at liquor. They say wo’dnt you reckon it a Great Miss fortune if you was to go out of your Mind & have to be put in a mad House, and if a Man gets drunk he goes out of his mind, & ought to be shut up in confinement, & they say if a Man was a reglar drunkard they wou’d shut him up two.
“They are good farmers I must say & good breeders too. you tell Mr. Evans, & my respects to him hope he is well & all his family, I haven’t for got all the farming I learnt under him tho’ I was but a lad, I wish he cou’d see the fine cows like the Holderness in the low grounds, and a breed like the alderney on the Mountaneous parts, & sheep to both long & short wool, such fleeces as I think he never see. But as for Mutton I can’t speak, for only think they never heard tell of Mutton, for theyd think it a most as big a sin to kill a Sheep or a Bulock & eat it as we shou’d to kill a Christian & eat his flesh like the Cannibles does. Theirs a queer peple for you. But they goes out hunting the Wild Cattle and wild Hog, theyve plenty of them, & they dont object by no means to a bit of wild pork or beef.
“A nother fancy of theirs is they never will have Joints of meat servd up nor any thing done hole, not a pig or a foul or a fish if its ever so small, but all done in chops or Hash or the like of that. And they said we must be like the savages to feed on hole carcasses & Limbs of Annimals, as Egles & Woolves does. They calls a Dingo a woolf, thats the Newholland wild dog.
“We went out with them several times, Hunting & shooting. They have guns only not so good as ours, but they shoot with Bows & Arows be sides, & wonderful good shots some of em is. Sometimes when we went out we had only to look on at them shooting, because they woudnt have no firing for fear of scaring away the game. But sometimes we had a grand Battoo & then all had guns & our Gentmen shot as well as the best of them. Mr. Jones made a present of his double baril Gun to one Gentman of the Country & mightyly pleased he was, for their workmen arnt up to a double Baril. And I shewd them a thing or too about the build & rigging of their fishing-boats that they wasnt up to. And very great full & handsome they was I must say, for they gave me as much in their money & other things as comes to better than 50£ besides several curosities as a sort of Keep sake like, I got new rigged from top to toe all in cloaths of their fashion hat & all & a comical hat you’d think if you was to see it.
“Mr. Jones he said at first all the peple looked like musheroms they have hats as big as a small table, but that is to keep off the sun which it is very glearing in new Holland.
“Then it was so strange to hear all about Kings & Sennates & Parliments & Piers & Lord mayers, just like being in a new World like. The thing is they have eleven states something like the States of America, only some is kingdoms & some is republicks & what not. I harly knew weather I was a sleep or a wake, it seam’d a kind of dream like.
“Then I went several times to parties of pleasure something in the Nature of our Wakes they calls them Rebels & I a tended my Masters to wait upon them at some of the Rebels of the Gentry, and high & low their was plenty of mirth at all. But the first time I went with the Gentmen I thought their was to be a Ball or the like of that just as the gentlefolks have in England, & sure anuff their was Gentmen & Lords & Lady’s a playing at Bowls or something like, & some shooting at a target, & some at other games in the nature of tenis & trap-ball, all as fond of the sport as boys & girls, & they all grown up Gent folks & no mistake. And the best of it is they thinks dansing is only fit for children & Savages. It’s as true as I am sitting hear.
“Its a fine country as I told you for pastur & corn & for gardens & orcheards to, & we see a good shew for fruit, only they havent got all the fruits as are in our colonies, being I suppose they wasnt known in former Times. And they are great Hands at Iragation as its calld thats leting the Water over the Land same as our Water Meadows, They’ll dam up a stream were it comes down from the high Ground, & So let it off by Canalls, & smaller Canalls out of those & so on, & then lower down there will be a nother dam, & so the River keeps wasting a way as it goes on, & some never gets to the Sea a tall. And its my belief they are one cause why no body has found any large river falling into the sea, for they say themselves, some that was in former times good sizd Rivers flowing to’rds the coast are now next to nothing. There is a great many Lakes tho’ & a sight of fine Fish in them, its wonderful to see how some of them will shoot fish in the shalows with Bow an arow. I never see the like, but for striking them with a spear I was up to that as well as them, & hook & line two.
“And they always serves up fish for second coarse, when theirs any meat for dinner or foul as their generly is, fresh or salt, pork beaf ducks & Geese plenty, then up comes fish after meat, & soupe last of all, & only think chese the first thing of all to begin dinner. They say its a wonder how any Body can degest chese after a Meal, & to be sure there is a saying that chese dejest all things but it self. But its all contrary to our ways as many things is hear, perhaps youll think it stands to reason were the north wind is hot & the south cold & Chrismas come in summer & the shortest day falls in June, tho’ the folks dont walk with their heads down & heals up in the air neither as the old nurses used to tell us.
“Well I cant tell you all nor half, but I must tell you of one great curosity we all went to see, near the town of Bath called Mount perril, its a good high mountain & they say was in times past a Burning mountain, & there is great caverns in the side, & out of some of them their ishues a noxuous vaper like what Ive heard talk of in coal pits wich they calls it chokdamp. We went a long with the worshipfull Christopher Adamson one of the Sennaters as they call im of the state of Bath, & stood a top of a cliff over one they calld the Gobbling cave, & let down in an iron Great a litle heap of dry chips & brush wood all a light & blazing, & wen it got into the caves mouth out it went as black as night jest as if you’d sousd it into the Sea, only there was no Hiss, and they said if any body was to go close to the mouth at some times hed drop down sufficated by the vaper. And in times past they said it was a fassion for Gentmen & Ladies two, if they had a Quarril to challenge one a nother to go their, by way of fighting a Dual, they calld it an Or Dual & they behovd to go to gather past the Gobbling cave & take their chance wich of ’em sho’d be Sufficated, & some times both. I said I thou’t it better than that or pistols either, to go and box it out fairly & then shake hands, & be freinds, tho’ to be sure that wouldnt do for the Ladys. But however theres no Or Duals now no kind of Duals at all their now a days. Their all to gather a very peicable well behaved set of peple as ever I see, And their a well looking peple to, tho’ some of them has a lick of the Tar brush as they say in the West Indies that is a mixture of Black blood in them, but they ar’nt no ways asham’d of it, for they say their not savages at any rate, & all men are children of Adam.
“Well I must conclude tho’ I havnt tolld you half what I see, So Mr. Sibthorpe he was for staying a bit longer if he could but let all our freinds know we were safe, for they wo’d be sure to give us up for lost. So it was setteld for Mr. Sibthorpe to stay & Lieut Robt Smith, to stay behind & the rest of us to return, and a long with us young Squire Adamson a son of the old sennator. And there was several more talkd of coming to visit Sidney & paraps England to, along with Mr. Sibthorpe. Well it was about six weeks in all we’d been thear, geting toards the latter part of Octr wen we set off to return and the peple had sent a party on befour, with two Canoes & provisions to wait for us some way on, & we went over land on horse back by a short cut that the Hunters knew of. And that saved us a good bit. And when we imbarked we knew the rout & saved a deal of time that we had lost in coming. But then again we was forced to land in some places were the water was to shalow, or dried up since we was thear be fore. And some hard work we had to get a long over the rocks & weeds. So after great fatigue it was passed the middle of Novr before we ariv’d, which we did all well thank God, & glad our friends was to see us, for they given us up for Lost.
“And so now as their’s a Vessel to Sail Day after To-morrow Morning I send this in haste hoping it will find you well & my Love to sister Jenkyns and her Husband hope is doing well & the boys who I supose they are grown out of my knowlege, And love to sister Nancy hope she’s a good girl & must be a help to you as you get old. So no more at present from your dutifull
“Son dear Father & Mother
“Paul Wilkins.
“P. S. I send Nancy a work bag I brought with me, made & embroided by a southland woman, she’d never gess what its made of, for its the poutch under a Pellicans Throat, what he keeps fish in. I send you also some peaces of their Money what they Give me, it is nothing very perticuler curious only for the shape, wich all they have is the Same that is not Round peaces like ourn is but Oval, wich they say it is not liabel to role away and be Lost if you drop a Peace, & so I think it is Better.”
THE END.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset Street, Fleet Street.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.