A letter by Henry Goldsmith to a kinsman dated 20 March, 1808, brings the story of this Nova Scotian family up to a somewhat later date.

“I am fixed here in the Commissariat Department and have a family of nine children, five sons and four daughters. The eldest Henry, follows the profession of the law: Hugh Colvill is I hope ere this, a lieutenant in the Navy: Oliver is with a merchant at Boston: Charles is a midshipman on this station, and Benjamin a boy. The daughters Ann, Catherine, Eliza and Jane are at home with me, and promise to be all I wish them.” (Prior II, 568.)

Hugh Colvill Goldsmith (1789-1841) referred to in his father’s letter, merits a passing mention as being the young sailor who on 8 April, 1824, shocked Cornish susceptibilities by displacing the famous rocking Logan Stone at the Land’s End, and had to arrange for its replacement later in that year (29 October to 2 November) in its original position, which as the weight of the stone is variously given as 60 to 80 tons, was no easy matter. Doubtless because of this foolhardy exploit, he has a niche in the Dictionary of National Biography, being in fact the only member of the Goldsmith family other than the poet who is thus honoured. He was born at St. Andrews, New Brunswick, on 2 April, 1789, and was at the time of the Logan Rock incident a Naval Lieutenant in command of the “Nimble” revenue cutter off the coast of Cornwall. He was never promoted, and died at sea off St. Thomas in the West Indies on 8 October, 1841. An incidental reference to Charles Goldsmith (also referred to in his father’s letter of 1808 as a midshipman) shows that he was afterwards a Commander in the Navy. His dates are 1795-1854.

10. CATHERINE, DAUGHTER OF THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Niece.)

The facts as to the daughter of Henry Goldsmith are easier to piece together, as Bishop Percy drew up when in London in July, 1800, a memorandum as to her case which has fortunately been preserved in manuscript, and gives incidentally some particulars as to other members of the Goldsmith family.

There are a number of pitiful letters from this poor little lonely and suffering soul addressed to the Bishop at dates ranging from 1794 to March, 1803, with drafts of two of the Bishop’s replies, mercifully modified before despatch, referring to his monetary advances already made to her, and speaking of the “constant source of plague and vexation” which the question of the publication of the Memoir had been to him. The end came in July, 1803, when one McDonnell wrote to the Bishop’s secretary that Catherine had died “after a painful illness to which her dependant and helpless situation must have greatly contributed.” McDonnell had seen to her being decently buried, and thought 8 or 9 guineas would reimburse the total cost. No doubt the Bishop sent him this.

11. MAURICE GOLDSMITH.

(Oliver’s Brother.)

Maurice, the next child of the Revd. Charles Goldsmith after Oliver, was born on 7 July, 1736, and was followed a year later (16 August, 1737) by Charles, and in 1740 by a fourth son John. Maurice was not therefore, as stated erroneously in a note on page 86 of the Percy Memoir “our poet’s youngest brother.” He first emerges from obscurity early in 1770, when he was in his thirty-fourth year, and wrote to Oliver a letter from the Lawder’s house at Kilmore asking for assistance. Oliver’s reply has fortunately been preserved. It bears no date, but Percy ascribes it to “January 1770,” which is about right, as endorsed upon it is Maurice’s receipt dated 4 February, 1770, £15, the amount of a legacy left by Uncle Contarine to Oliver which he made over to his brother (I, 89).