(COPY).

To the Right Honourable LORD VISCOUNT ****, &c., &c., &c., Whitehall.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP,

I humbly beg a thousand pardons and apologies for so great a liberty, and taking up time so valuable to the nation with the present application. Nothing short of absolute necessity could compel to such a course; but I make bold to say, a case of greater hardship never had the honour to be laid before official eyes. My poor husband, however, is totally unaware of my writing; as he would certainly forbid any such epistolary step, whether on my part or his own; though in point of fact the shattered state of his nerves is such as to preclude putting pen to paper if ever so inclined. But as a wife and a mother, it would not become me to preserve silence, with my husband perishing by inches before my eyes; and particularly when a nobleman of your Lordship’s rank would be sure to sympathise for an unfortunate gentleman, of birth and breeding, that after waiting above forty odd years for his rights, has only come at last into a public post that must, and will be his death!

To favour with the particulars, my husband has the honour to be related very distantly to the Peerage; and as Your Lordship knows, it is the privilege of Aristocracy to provide for all their connexions by comfortable public situations, which are sometimes enjoyed very early in life. To such Mr. D. had a hereditary right from his cradle, for his noble relative the Duke of——, was so condescending as to stand sponsor by proxy; and instead of the usual spoons, or a silver mug, made a promise to the Infant of some office suited to its tender age; for instance a superannuation, or the like, where there is nothing to do, but the salary to receive. In point of fact, the making the Baby a retired King’s Messenger was verbally undertaken at the font: but before the child could come into office His Grace unfortunately went out of power, by dying of apoplexy, leaving nothing but a promise, which a new ministry was unjust and ungrateful enough not to make good. In this shocking manner, Your Lordship, was my husband thrown upon the world, without proper provision according to his station and prospects, and was degraded to the necessity of his own exertions for support, till his fortieth year, when the new Duke thought proper to stir in his behalf. The truth is, a severe illness had left Mr. D.’s mind and nerves in such a pitiful shattered state, as to make him unfit for any business whatever, except public affairs; and accordingly it became the duty of his friends to procure him some post under government. So a proper application was made to his Grace, and through his influence and the fortunate circumstance of an election at the time, Mr. D. was appointed to the dreadful situation he at present enjoys. Of course we entirely acquit His Grace, who never set eyes on my husband in his life, and therefore could not be expected to know the precise state of his constitution; but I appeal to Your Lordship, whether it was proper patronage for a man shattered in mind and nerves, and subject to tremors, and palpitations, and bodily shocks of all sorts, to be made a Superintendent of Powder-Mills, with the condition of living attached to the works?

For my own part, Your Lordship, I looked on the Duke’s letter of congratulations as neither more nor less than my poor husband’s death-warrant. Indeed he was so dreadfully alarmed himself, as to be quite distressing to witness. He did nothing, the whole afternoon, but walk up and down the room, shaking his head at himself in the looking-glass, or looking up at the ceiling, and muttering, as if he was already exploding sky high along with the Mills. But a refusal was out of the question, as it would have afforded his Grace too good an excuse for neglecting our interests for the future. To aggravate the case, the very day after our taking possession, there was what is called a blow at the works, and though so trifling as only to carry a roof off a shed, it struck a cord on Mr. D.’s nerves that has never done vibrating ever since. I do not exaggerate to say, that if he had been struck with the palsy and St. Vitus, both at once, he could not have showed more corporeal agitation. He trembled in every limb like an aspen tree; while his eyes rolled, and his head went from side to side, like the China Mandarin’s; besides scouring up and down stairs, and rushing out of doors and in again, and trying all the chairs but could not sit any where, and stamping, and muttering, and dancing about, till I really expected he would scramble up the walls of the room, and fly across the ceiling, like our tortoiseshell cat in her fits. If I lived to Methusalem, Your Lordship, I should never forget it! Unluckily, being new to his office, a mistaken notion of duty possessed him that he ought not to quit the spot; indeed he solemnly declared, that if a blow was to take place in his absence, he would rather commit his own suicide than face the report of it in the newspapers, which had already indulged in some seditious sneers at his appointment. All that could be done, therefore, was to pack off Lucy, and Emily and Eliza, on week’s visits among friends; myself remaining behind, as a wife’s proper post, near my poor husband; but on the discomfortable condition of keeping under ground in the cellar, because gunpowder in convulsions always blasts upwards. What my feelings were, as we are troubled with rats, Your Lordship may suppose; particularly when Mr. D. was officially called upon to inspect the damage; and never shall I forget his gashly appearance when he returned from his awful task! He was literally as white as a sheet; and totally incapable to get out a word, till he had swallowed three whole glasses of brandy! That settled his reason,—but it was only to tell me that lie had scraped and grazed the skin off every nubble of his back-bone, by a bad fall from a ladder, which he had attempted to come down in wooden safety shoes. Such, Your Lordship, was our miserable day; and it brought as wretched a night. Bed would not be heard of—and we set up in two easy chairs, shuddering with fright and cold, being December, and every door and window thrown wide open, to give a thorough vent through the house, in case of another shock. For Mr. D. was unfortunately possessed that one blow always leads to another; and what with fancying flying sparks, for it was starlight, and sniffing fire, he had worked himself up, before morning, into a high fever and a light head. The nearest medical man was obliged to be called in—and he had to give frightful doses of laudanum before Mr. D.’s nerves could be lulled into a startlish sort of doze;—and at waking, he was ordered to drink the strongest stimuluses; as indeed are in use to the present time. But this continual brandy, brandy, brandy, as Your Lordship knows, is a dreadful remedy; though, as my poor husband says, he cannot fill up his place without its help. At times I could almost believe, tho’ I would not breathe such a thing except to Your Lordship, that between the stimuluses, and the delirium, and the whole shock to the system, Mr. D. is a little beside his senses. The mad Doctors do say, that we are all, every one of us, crazy on a certain subject; and if such is the case, there can be no doubt that my husband’s weak point is explosions, the extravagance of his precautions making him an everlasting torment to himself as well as to all about him. Of course it is to his disadvantage, and magnifies his terrors, not to have been brought regularly up to the business; not that he receives much comfort from those who have, for he says custom and habit have made them so daring and hardened, that they would not mind playing at snap-dragon in the Magazine, or grinding their knives on the millstone that crushes the gunpowder into grains.

Since the above accident we have had, thank goodness, no more blows; but, as Your Lordship is aware, a first impression will stick by us for all our lives to come. At the best of times, let my husband be reading, or writing, or eating his dinner, or in bed, or what not, the exploding notion will come across him like a flash of lightning; as for instance last Friday was a week. Mr. and Mrs. Trotter had dropped in to tea; after which we had a rubber; and were all very comfortable, my husband and me just in the nine holes, when all of a sudden there was a fall of something and a scream. Up jumps Mr. D. of course, chucking his cards here, there, and every where, and calling a blow! a blow!—and as usual Emily and Lucy and Eliza and me rushed off to the coal-cellar, while Mrs. T. went into a fit. It is true, by the blessing of Providence, it was only the Housemaid letting her pail fall to screech at a bat; but what is very disagreeable, the Trotters are old friends, and have declined to set another foot within our doors. As for servants, it is next to impossible to keep one about me; and as Your Lordship’s own Lady will confirm, there is nothing more unpleasant to a Mistress of a House than to be continually changing. But nine out of ten prefer giving warning, to attending to so many punctiliums as are laid down; and those that are willing to stay, break through so many of the rules, that I am obliged to discharge them, to prevent Mr. D. being ruffled by doing it himself. Besides it adds considerably to servants’ work, to have chimneys swept so often as once a week,—and moreover, Mr. D. insists on keeping all flints and steels, and tinder, and matches, in his own bed-room, so that the housemaid has to go to him every morning for her lights. He is just as particular about extinguishing at night; and I lost the best cook I ever had, through her sitting up in her bed-room to mend her stays, though she might have known Mr. D. would come in to put her out—all of which is extremely unpleasant, and to me in particular.

These, Your Lordship, are serious domestic evils; and I wish I could say they were confined to the house. But the workmen at the Mills are so ungrateful as to hate my husband for the over care he obliges them to take of their own lives; and make no secret of wanting his removal, by trying to torment him into resignation. Not a day passes without squabbles about smoking, for Mr. D. is apt to sniff tobacco, and insists on searching pockets for pipes, which the labourers one and all decline; and besides scuffles, there have been several pay offs on the spot. The consequence is ill will and bad blood to their superior, and it is become a standing practical joke to play upon the family feelings and fears. I have twice suffered all the disagreeables of escaping from nothing at all in my night dress, exposed to rheumatism, and the natives of a low neighbourhood; indeed only last Sunday the fire bell was rung by nobody, and no wind at all to speak of. Another party at enmity is Doctor Worral and all his establishment; because Mr. D. felt it his public duty to have the Doctor up before a Justice, for allowing his Young Gentlemen to send up fire-balloons. We had one day of dreadful excitement on my husband’s part, through a wicked little wretch of a pupil flashing the sunshine into the Mill with a bit of looking-glass; and of course we are indebted for the Swing letters we receive to the same juvenile quarters. To make bad worse, Mr. D. takes them all for Gospel, and the extra watchings, and patrollings, and precautions, after getting a threatening notice, are enough to wear out all our hearts. As regards the School, I am ready to agree that it is too near the Works; and to tell the truth, I shake in my shoes as much as Mr. D., every fifth of November, at each squib and cracker that goes off. On the same score our own sons are an everlasting misery to us when they are at home; which they seldom are, poor fellows, on that account. But if there is one thing above another that boys delight to play with, it is gunpowder; and being at the very fountainhead, Your Lordship may conceive the constant care it is to prevent their getting at it, and what is worse, not always crowned with success. Indeed even more innocent playthings are obliged to be guarded against; for as their father says, “a little brat, just breeched, may strike light enough to blow up a whole neighbourhood, through only spinning a peg-tog in a paved yard.”

Such, your Lordship, is our present melancholy state. I have not dwelt, as I might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that are spoiled in the coal-cellar; the paying months’ wages instead of warnings; nor the trays upon trays of glass and china that are chucked down, as the way the servants always empty their hands when making their escapes from my husband’s false alarms. Sometimes it’s a chair falls overhead; or the wind slams the back door; or a smell of burnt wood from the kitchen; or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or fall of soot; or a candle-snuff; or a smoky coal; or, as I have known before now, only the smell of the drains; with a hundred other little things that will spring up in families, take what care you will. I ought not to forget thunder-storms, which are another source of trouble; for, besides seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real one, it is the misfortune of Mr. D. not to put faith in conductors, or, to use his own words, “in Franklin, philosophy, and fiddlesticks,—and a birch rod as likely to frighten away lightning as an iron one.” In the meantime, through the constant frights and flurries, I begin to find my own nerves infected by bad example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter Lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor low way. Agreeable society might do much to enliven our spirits; but my husband is become very shy of visitors, ever since Captain Gower was so inconsiderate as to walk in, one foggy night, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. In fact he quite sets his face against the male sex: for, if they do not smoke cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on their iron heels and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks and umbrellas. All which, Your Lordship, is extremely hard on myself and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little gaiety; but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quadrille party at Christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance in list shoes.

I humbly trust to Your Lordship’s liberality, and goodness of heart, to view the particulars of the above melancholy statement with attentive consideration. As it may occur to inquire how we have suffered so long without complaining, I beg to inform Your Lordship, that, being such a time of profound peace, we have lived on from year to year in the hope that no more ammunition would be required; and consequently the place would become a comfortable sinecure. But it appears that Spain and Portugal, and other countries, have gone to war on condition of being supplied with gunpowder; and accordingly, to our bitter disappointment, the works are as vigorous as ever. Your Lordship will admit the hardship of such a cruel position to a man of Mr. D.’s very peculiar constitution; and I do hope and trust will also regard his interests with a favourable eye, in consideration of his long-standing claims upon the country. What his friends most desire for him is, some official situation,—of course with a sufficient income to support his consequence, and a numerous family,—but without any business attached to it, or only as much as might help to amuse his mind for one or two hours in the day. Such a removal, considering my husband’s unfitness for anything else, could occasion no sort of injury to the public service; particularly as his vacancy would be so easy to fill up. There are hundreds and thousands of land and sea officers on half pay, who have been used to popping, and banging, and blowing up rockets and bomb-shells, all their lives; and would, therefore, not object to the Powder Mills; especially as the salary is handsome, with a rent-free house and garden, coal and candles, and all the other little perquisites that belong to public posts. As regards ourselves on the contrary, any interest is preferable to the gunpowder interest; and I take upon myself to say, that Mr. D. would be most proud and happy to receive any favour from Your Lordship’s administration; as well as answering for his pursuing any line of political principles, conservative or unconservative, that might be chalked out. Any such act of patronage would command the eternal gratitude of Mr. D., self, and family; and, repeating a thousand apologies for thus addressing, I beg leave to remain

Your Lordship’s most humble, obedient, and devoted servant,

LUCY EMILY DEXTER.

P.S.—Since writing the above, I am sorry to inform your Lordship, that we have had another little blow, and Mr. D.’s state is indescribable. He is more shaken than ever, and particularly through going all down the stairs in three jumps. He was sitting reading at the time, and, as he thinks, in his spectacles; but as they are not to be found, he is possessed that they have been driven into his head.