| Description | A fine range of comment, and topics include : the financial difficulties of the nation; the iron trade is hard pressed; even "the great Sr W W "is turning off" workmen; news (and this is repeated in several of the letters) of the state of the produce and livestock at Wynn Hall; J K waxes eloquent at the superiority of Nature over Art; his gout; local coal and ironstone concerns; "night sweats" produced in harassed business neighbours by over-complicated worries and stresses ; requests by the sisters for William to send apples and coffee; enquires as to the price of "good, moist sugar". Asks after "sister Parry"; crops; willing to pay for French lessons for William; a visit to Sir W W's Ball; advice to Wm to learn as much as possible. The iron trade at Brymbo; easy money ("getting money with a shait back"); drink the ruin of several young men in Wrexham; homilies on the virtues; messages of regard to [Rev.] Mr Twiss; Samuel's sojourn in New Orleans; brother Edward and the good advice Wm has given him; the persistence of the rheumatic gout; the necessity for a master to be with his work-people, as "... the eye of the master makes a material difference..."; uncle Archibald; "Trade may make a Gentleman, but a Gentleman will never make a Trade"; Jevans wishes Lacon to join him in carrying on an iron furnace "now that the Chirk Castle Estate is settled". A mild winter in 1819; market prices are lowering; urges Wm to keep good company; Lacon's desire for a railroad and the moves to thwart him; "Poor Samls" tribulations in St. Louis; fears of his catching yellow fever. New lodgings for Wm (1820); a visit by J K and uncle James to Abbergelly [sic] to see Sarah and Mary, and a joint trip by them all to Conway; wishes Wm to have "handsome genteel Cloathess"; much about a great-coat with a velvet collar (!); emphasizes the virtue of punctuality in young men; some accurately forged £1 notes in Salop, and the consequent attention of the "Bow Street gentry"; Archibald Kenrick is sick of being an ironmaster; urges Wm to learn to speak in public etc. |