| Description | Soho, near Birmingham, August 29th, 1811.
Reverend Sir,
I was duly honored and gratified with your letter of —, a date so remote that I blush to quote it. Further absence from home and many other untoward circumstances have frequently caused me heave the sigh of regret for want of due attention to many objects that may in the limited scale of my avocations be deemed of relative importance, and in this point of view I feel as a reproach your letter of the 24th April!
One good, however, results from the delay, as it enables me now to send a less barren letter than would have resulted from an immediate reply. The inclosed two guineas Mr. Boulton requests you will have the goodness to give Mrs. Stevenson in that way which may appear to you most beneficial to the family.
I have the pleasure to inform you, for the information of the widow, that her son John continues steady and gives satisfaction to the manager of the department in which he has been placed, as well as to his other well wishers. His Sunday afternoons he generously spends with my boys, and behaves himself with a steadiness and decorum beyond what might be expected from a boy of his age:—an arrangement is now making, by order of Mr. Boulton, to give him the benefit of an evening school, and I have no doubt but he will be commendably attentive both to his work and his learning. He begs me to present, most gratefully, his humble duty to you; and with those involuntary tears which bespeak a feeling heart requests to be affectionately remembered to his mother, the children, and his other relatives.
It gave us pleasure to learn that you have put to rest the dubious point of the Widow Stevenson’s parochial settlement, and that you are so kind as to advance the weekly allowance granted her by Rochdale. Allow me to conclude with a wish, that she may long continue to enjoy, in the preservation of your life and health, as friendly an eye to her, and her family’s, welfare.
I remain, reverend sir, very respectfully, your most obedient servant,
Wm. Cheshire
PS. Mr. Boulton, immediately upon the departure of the mother, gave me instructions respecting John Stevenson’s dining occasionally on a Sunday at Soho House, which have been, and will continue to be, attended to.
The Revd. H. G. D. Yate,
Bromesberrow,
near Ledbury,
Gloucestershire. |