1811 June

Eliza Fenwick, London, to Mary Hays, at Thomas Hays, Esqr, Wandsworth Common, Sunday, 10 o’clock, [c. June 1811].¹

Sunday 10 oClock

For fear of accidents, I deemed it best to cut the enclosed notes. I dare say the Post is a safe conveyance but my misfortunes render me timid & suspicious of evil. I believe I should really be distracted to lose this sum & in such desperate Circumstances as mine over-caution is scarcely a weakness. What a state of mid mind I have been in since Wednesday. Afer Lanno was gone Eliza told me she intended seeing a manager from Barbadoes who was in town & w^d go with him if they c^d agree. I helpless wretched I could not say ought against it, so I begged M^rs M— to spare me for three hours that I might go with Eliza to this dreaded interview on thursday. I did, and the man seemed prepossessed in her favor, but wished to see her play & the means of that was to be consider’d of. He said she must enter into a bond for three years service & threw out some remarks of surprise at her venturing alone & unprotected on such an enterprise. When Eliza & I parted that morning, I seemed to have consigned her to something worse than her grave, but I said not a syllable in dissuasion. Last night I rec^d from her a note of which I make an extract for you

My dearest Mother,

Compared with what I was yesterday & the day before I am happy. I have determined not to go to Barbadoes and my mind is easy. As soon as you left me & I began to think of going without you to such a distance I felt very nearly out of my senses. It was a mad scheme. We have but one happiness in our possession, in this world, & to throw that away w^d be to deserve the punishment it would inflict. You cannot leave Lanno without sacrificing his hopes & forcing him to be as unfortunate as ourselves. I sh^d not like to separate from him the only two years we are likely to be together, but for the sake of Money to help him, I would submit, but I w^d not, could not part with you, perhaps indeed never to meet again, for millions. We will do the best we can, if I can get a Country engagement, and if not I will try teaching & authorship – We will work & starve together – together we will remain. Be happy, very happy for we have no hopes! Fortune will never smile on us & we must be happy without her. It is only people who have no real troubles that are allowed to pet, to make the world even. Do you know I think I am not always in my steady senses. I now feel a Joy in repeating I will not go to Barbadoes, yet I sought the opportunity as if it were to constitute the felicity of my life & when the prospect was before me I feared it as some people do death – My dearest Mother what sh^d I be without you!”

Whether to call this a relief I know not I am so bewildered, that so hopeless, that I dreadful as the separation would be I almost fancy I ought to counsel my poor girl to fly far from me & the contagion of my miseries. Sometimes I imagine that the dreadful & unnatural curse M^r F. laid on Eliza in the wantonness of his spleen against me, cleaves to & overwhelms her. It is certainly a moral truth that the sins of the Parents must in some shape or other be visited upon the heads of the Children.

I have requested this afternoon to go to Town to meet Eliza at Godwins, after a long mornings work in which every sentence I uttered seemed to exhaust me & leave me without the possibility of speaking again.

My depression of spirits is so great that I cannot write to Lanno as I meant to do. Perhaps by the next post conveying the remainder of the notes I may be better able to address a few lines to him. Adieu dear Mary. Forgive me for being thus always troublesome to you.

Yrs ever E F

M^r Harris has confirmed Elizas dismissal. So no more hopes remain in that quarter. M^r Colman² w^d have engaged her had she applied in time for the Haymarket Season. So they kept her in indecision just long enough to effect the utmost possible mischief.

Address: Miss Hays | T. Hays Esq^r | Wandsworth Common

Postmark: Illegible

¹ Fenwick Family Papers, Correspondence, 1798-1855, New York Historical Library; Wedd, Fate of the Fenwicks 36-37; not in Brooks, Correspondence.

² George Colman (1762-1836) succeeded his father as manager of the Haymarket Theatre in 1789; he was also a prolific playwright.