I have to thank you for your letter of the 22d August containing a newspaper slip. You say that the idea of Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race; “from absolute want of evidence is totally incapable of proof,” and “from beginning to end is no better than a conjecture”; and that as proof to the contrary is “the fact that before the birth of Bunyan his ancestors are known to have resided in Bedfordshire for many generations, some of them having been landed proprietors.” Now read what Bunyan said of himself:—
“For my descent, it was, as is well known to many, of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father’s house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the land.”
This descent, he said, was “well known to many.” Was not that a fact? If it was then “well known to many,” how has the knowledge of it died out in his Church and neighbourhood? A fact like that could not have been forgotten within two centuries, during which time Banyan’s memory, with all relating to it, has been cherished more and more, unless it had been, at some time, wilfully or tacitly suppressed; and an attempt made to connect him even with the aristocracy of the country! I have never seen or heard of an allusion to any of his relations, although the great probability is that there was an “extensive ramification” of them. The reason I have assigned for that is that “very probably his being a tinker was, with friends and enemies, a circumstance so altogether discreditable as to render any investigation of the kind perfectly superfluous” (Dis. p. 517). [11c] “A low and inconsiderable generation.” What did that phrase mean? And as if that were not sufficient, he added that “his father’s house” was “of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in land”; and still not satisfied with that, he continued:—
“Another thought came into my mind, and that was, whether we [his family and relations] were of the Israelites or no? For finding in the Scriptures that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I, if I were one of this race [how significant is the expression!] my soul must needs be happy. Now again, I found within me a great longing to be resolved about this question, but could not tell how I should. At last I asked my father of it, who told me, No, we [his father included] were not.”
In my Disquisition on the Gipsies I said:—
“Such a question is entertained by the Gipsies even at the present day, for they naturally think of the Jews, and wonder whether, after all, their race may not, at some time, have been connected with them. I have heard the same question put by Gipsy lads to their parent (a very much mixed Gipsy), and it was answered thus:—‘We must have been among the Jews, for some of our ceremonies are like theirs.’” (p. 511).
I presume that no one will question the assertions that Bunyan was a tinker, and that English “tinkers” are simply Gipsies of more or less mixed blood. Put together these three ideas—his description of his “father’s house,” and their not being Jews, but tinkers, that is, Gipsies of mixed blood—and you have the evidence or proof that John Bunyan was of the Gipsy race. If people are hanged on circumstantial evidence, cannot the same kind of proof be used to explain the language which Bunyan used to remind the world who and what he was, at a time when it was death by law for being a Gipsy, and “felony without benefit of clergy” for associating with them, and odious to the rest of the population? From all that we know of Bunyan, we could safely conclude that he was not the man to leave the world in doubt as to who and what he was. He even reminded it of what it knew well; but with his usual discretion he abstained from using a word that was banned by the law of the land and the more despotic decree of society, and concluded that it perfectly understood what he meant, although there was no necessity, or even occasion, for him to do what he did. [12]
Why then say that there is an “absolute want of evidence” in regard to Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race, and that it is “totally incapable of proof”; and assert that it is a fact that his ancestors were “landed proprietors,” and that there might be better grounds for holding that Bunyan was of Norman origin than of Gipsy descent?
Bunyan was either of the Gipsy race (of mixed blood) or of the native one. I have given the proof of the former—proof which, I think, is sufficient to hang a man. Where is the proof of his having been something else than of the Gipsy race? And if there is no proof of that, why assert it? What Bunyan said of his family was proof that he was not of the native race. Asserting as a fact that, from the surname, his ancestors were ordinary natives of England, and landed proprietors at that, is nearly as unreasonable as to maintain that every English Gipsy of the name of Stanley is nearly related to the Earl of Derby because his name is Stanley.
Like any one charged with an offense unbecoming Englishmen, almost any of them will protest that he has no prejudice against the name of Gipsy, and that “he would not have the smallest objection to believe that Bunyan was one of the race if the fact was only proved by sufficient evidence”; while at the same time he will retain and manifest his prejudices, and entirely ignore the evidence, or refuse to say in what respect it is deficient, and believe the opposite, or something entirely different from it, without a particle of proof in its favour, or entirely disproved by Bunyan’s admission in regard to his “father’s house.”