Too thoughtless Man! to lavish thus away
A Week’s support in less than half a Day,
But ’tis a Curse attends this wretched Place,
To pay for dear-bought Wit in little Space,
Till Time shall come when this new Tenant here,
Will in his turn shule for a Pot of Beer,
Repent the melting of his Cash too fast,
And Snap at Strangers for a Night’s Repast.
JONAS HANWAY.
If Jonas Hanway had lived before Fuller, he certainly would have been enshrined among his ‘Worthies;’ and it is astonishing to find how comparatively ignorant of him and his works are even well-read men. Ask one about him, and he will reply that he was a philanthropist, but he will hardly be able to say in what way he was philanthropic: ask another, and the reply will be that he was the man who introduced umbrellas into England—but it is very questionable if he could tell whence he got the umbrella to introduce. But in his time he was a man of mark, and his memory deserves more than a short notice in ‘Chalmers,’ the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ or any other biographical dictionary.
He was born at Portsmouth on the 12th of August, 1712, in the reign of ‘good Queen Anne.’ History is silent as to his pedigree, save and except that his father was connected with the navy, and was for some years store-keeper to the dockyard at Portsmouth, and his uncle by the father’s side was a Major John Hanway, who translated some odes of Horace, &c. His father died whilst Jonas was still a boy, and Mrs. Hanway had much trouble to bring up her young family, who all turned out well, and were prosperous in after life: one son, Thomas, filling the post of commander-in-chief of his Majesty’s ships at Plymouth, and afterwards commissioner of the dockyard at Chatham.
On his father’s death, his mother removed to London, where, somehow or other, she brought up her children by her own exertions, and with such care and affection that Jonas never spoke, or wrote, of his mother but in terms of the highest reverence and gratitude. He was sent to school, where he was not only educated commercially, but classically. Still, he had his bread to win, and, when he was seventeen years of age, he was sent to Lisbon, which he reached June, 1729, and was bound apprentice to a merchant, under whose auspices he developed the business qualities which afterwards stood him in good stead. At the end of his apprenticeship he set up in business for himself in Lisbon, but soon removed to the wider field of London. What pursuit he followed there, neither he, nor any biographer of his, has told us, but in 1743 he accepted the offer of a partnership in Mr. Dingley’s house at St. Petersburg.
What a difference in the voyage from London to St. Petersburg, then and now! Now, overland: it only takes two days and a half.
Then, in April, 1743, he embarked on the Thames in a crazy old tub, bound for Riga, and got to Elsinore in May. As everything then was done in a leisurely manner, they stopped there for some days, arriving at Riga by the end of May, having taken twenty-six days to go from Elsinore to Riga, now done by steam, under fair conditions, in two days.
Here he found, as most people do, the Russian spring as hot as he ever remembered summer in Portugal, and was most hospitably entertained by the British factors. But Russia was at war with Sweden, and, although he had plenty of letters of recommendation, the Governor of Riga would not allow him to proceed on his journey, until he had communicated with the authorities at St. Petersburg, thus causing a delay of a fortnight, and he did not leave until the 7th of June. His sojourn at Riga, however, was not lost, for he kept his eyes open, and looked about him.