their attention to farming! Oh jiminy! imported corn, oranges during the year from 85 to 110 cents per bushel, in short, to keep house costs about $200, or $250 per year -. The leaping from 25 to 62 cts per load, to be carted from 1 to 2 miles on land yet many active ship masters try to convince themselves that they are saving their money in spite of the result shown, after figuring one voyage - .The silk bubble soon burst – I never knew Jenks to pursue a probably wrong scent so tenaciously before - . I hired him a great deal, and said to him , you are bragging one day of the self satisfaction you feel in having been instrumental in collecting under the roofs of school houses the whole as it were of the juvenile part  of the community.  The next you say that children can tend silk worms- . I made so much sport about it. That I was set down as a radical, and as a (?) excellincy that there was nothing good except in Ohio, and that nothing good could come out of Nazareth -  Such hauling and pulling for bundles of mulberry trees. – Men inserting trees into the ground, that never inserted any pole I into their dockets. One man, ploughed two Cato lots  ( 7 acres) and filled  it with trees, about the size of one’s thumb – In other words, he set them out in rows 8 feet with a space between of 12 feet -. They all died of course – In short, at considerable expense those men set out about 5,000 trees and all the beans they produced would not have given 500 silk worms a lunch -. It used to make me laugh to hear the “very nice things” a heaping of the excellincy (?) of the Morus Mealticauly. Aaron Mitchell is always at head of all such schemery  as Cousin Jeb calls it, and in they form into his words -  He loses a couple of thousands  - what of it – But others lose who cannot afford it - . Lydia rode out with me yesterday for the second time since I came home – we rode around the hummock pond – There was a gang at the south head, so we rode down about two thirds the distance to the poquay  (?) lots, caught 27 perch, between the had them at tea time – Lydia caught two -. It is a great year this year in the ponds , and difficult from the shore to throw outside of grass any where -  and in the North head, you can’t at all. I like to walk over the hills, and bring the recollection Tom’s and my boyish rambles to the hummock – Methinks I see the self  same thistles which stung me then, because I kept my eye heedless of anything else, steady up the bluff bank, wondering if I should ever get there -. The same red wing gave his harsh cluck over my head, and when I come to the little gutter sunning from the swamp, I always lay down and drink, and think how I felt, when Tom and myself caught a turtle there – As we

both saw it at once it became joint stock – But we always thought Grad Clasby stole it the first night from the hogshead -. At the time of the great fire here, one of the engines became suddenly useless and remained so, or nearly so, during the conflagration - half of a turtle was found  50 feet along the hose, the other jammed in, some where, about the valves. Mem. boys should not put turtles in rain water hogsheads -.  Our relations are generally in good health-  Uncle Seth farms considerable – Aunt Mary is feeble- very.  she is done up- The youngest children are barely out of her arms -. Uncle James carpenters and fishes at Sconset -. Aunt Deborah and her two married daughters do up a heap of tailoring – she stops in frequently to see us, she says she supposes that she has now got another child to bring up- she has three grandchildren- Aunt Deborah is one of the most noble and handsome women that walk our streets, and is much esteemed and respected – Aunt Love has not enjoyed much health for years  - she spends all her summers at Sconset -. I have never heard of Uncle Isaac setting foot there - She makes candle boxes during the week, and reads to him long day Sundays – He gets little to do this year, and they no doubt, are very poor.

Uncle Seth has one grand child, by the 2nd daughter, Rebecca.

We seldom see any of the females of the Coffin family, though there is no misunderstanding, and they are, always when we meet, (the men every day) inquiring about the family in the most friendly terms.

Cousin Jeb works in the sail loft - He is much broken in body but not a bit of it in spirit -. He comes in very frequently of an evening, “to see the little gal and her chicks” – If he misses this evening (Sunday) it will be a wonder – He is capital company and it seems to me that he has not forgotten a single iota of any transactions connected with his existence -. He is a great hand for remembering couplets of old songs, having a bearing of individuals from his younger days, their sayings, doings &c &c. He is not on the watch now – too cold they say -  When he was, Lydia says that she has lain awake, list’ning the wintry blast and “doors and windows rattle”, thinking of him, when cousin Jeb would come along and sing out the time of night, and likely enough add on the verse of a song, it would be like a anodyne to her-. We came in the other day, “well”, says Lydia, “Cousin Jeb, how is your health nowadays?”  Pretty fair, daughter, pretty fair for an old man, only I have to keep a bright eye to windward, that I don’t get cold, for if I do, I have to lay a hull for a week, with a blasphemony unpardonable cough! Aunt Abby is going from old age – she gets here about once a fortnight to draw from Lydia in person – She being her baker -. I drew the last dividend of $10.00 for her the

last of her French indemnity money -. Nothing can persuade her to view the blacken and charred piece of what is left of the mansion house -. Lydia went down once with me – The pieces had been taken away, the the burnt stumps of the posts and the blackened pump log looming from the well was all that remained – the powder (a keg of 25 lbs) blew chunks of the cellar wall, several yards square, a dozen feet or more -.  We placed it at the foot of the cellar stair, with a slow match formed of (?), very slightly twisted – Poor Lydia burst into tears at the sight and I could not refrain from joining her -. Our walks always had us around the premises – But from the Lydia Giles house to the foot of the late rope walk, is one blackened oily waste -. One lot of winter strained (?) contained 900 bbls in 6 & 8 bbl casks -. What a sight to see loops standing in skeleton nakedness exactly as they were stowed when clasping their valuable contents. James Athearn lost about 85,000 dollars (?), but clapped his name upon the donation paper the very first to the tune of $1000.00 and of course the skin flints Jo Levi and Simeon could not get off with (?), for their immense and valuable story were in the greatest danger-   The wind was at first from South, fresh- Had it have continued, their stores would have gone and nothing left. The North shore would have stopped the flames- But it suddenly changed to S.W. and blowing the black columns of oil smoke, now to the E. enabled us,  to get a couple of engines and keep them damp, until the fire opposite, a shed of 300 bbls of oil, and a (?) house burnt up-  A holy neighbour of ours, a coop ship carpenter, told me to “mark the finger of Providence, the wind changed”. I told him if his god saved the buildings of the Starbucks, he was the cause of burning all that was burnt, but a very trifle; - for if he had better changes the wind to N.W. when it was first discovered, only the head of the walk could have been burnt- “But, Neighbour, don’t you think that Providence intereferes, and controls all?”  In reply, I told him that one habits, pursuits, and particularly education, disqualified us from any argument upon such speculation point, but, as he had before said, that all I wanted to become a perfect man, (in his estimation of course) was to think if he did, I owed him all due gratitude-  Though as for subscribing to such a partial Providence as he imagined, I would sooner beg a god of the New Zealanday subject to no mutations of former character, except those wrought by time-.

I might continue on for pages, “and still have something left to say”- I will report every change in my affairs, which are of course monotonous enough now, and will be, until there is some change

in the administration of Naval affairs- oft Mr. Paulding finds the end of the coil, and I will give him the ”A 1” to clear the snarl-.

A paper mailed from someone from Batania, announced Williams’s marriage -. I had it published and answered the inquiry of  (not so many as that,) but a great many from persons who know him in infamy- We have not been without hopes, but that we should know some of the particulars, and no doubt we shall in due time know , all which is proper for us to know-  They have from us, the heartfelt and sincere wishes of an affectionate brother and Sister. For for a full share, of the moiety of happenings meted out to mankind.

Cousin James Bunker, who received Paul West’s daughter, a fine young man, and gets some law writing- Charles had an officer in charge, and we are upon good “change” terms- I believe Uncle Bunker enjoys much domestic happiness-. He has no places of resort “down long” and why should he have? He has every comfort at home, and cares for nobody, and nobody cares for me-   Since writing the foregoing I find that Mr. Coffin is certainly going on Wednesday in the steamboat. We thought he had put it off until Monday’s boat, following-. It is now half past nine, Monday 10. (PM) and, as the bell rang nine,  I headed home, and Lydia of course was taken unawares must be at Jonathan Swain’s by 12 (M) tomorrow, for the “mail”-  Lydia has gone into the front room to add a line, or append one to what Harriet has been writing-.  I have been gone an hour this evening, in obtaining the necessary information of the positive departure of Mr. Coffin-.  Why I staid so long, was because I left Lydia in tears- I stopped into the reading room and read “4th of July accidents”, congenial with my three siblings. I said that left Lydia in tears. I found her ready to write, but what she is writing I can not to see or know.  But to the point-   If any one is to blame in eliciting from my Dear Mother, the sentiment attributed to me that Lydia did not want Deborah-----.  I am the person-. I was premature in making the proposition to Lydia, for my letter was a long while in getting to Nant. as I ought to have expected at that season. Her argument to herself, she says was, that the season was far advanced- she could not imagine my views so suddenly usurped (?) , because, when we had been talking together of Deborah, and planning a visit, we came to the conclusion that the time might come, when it would come right for one, or both
(Letter ends here, incomplete)