Page:Letters of John Andrews.djvu/11

 LETTERS OF JOHN ANDREWS. 5

reason that in his later and larger communications it was adopted by Mr. Andrews himself, some of whose letters were thus carried on from day to day, until weeks had elapsed between their commencement and their conclusion.

Of the merits of the correspondence I think very highly. There is little of the same description and period that is more readable. That they were not written with the faintest idea of publication is palpably evident; and their language, there- fore, while animated and unrestrained, is sometimes frank, and perhaps careless. But a good letter may well be character- ized by such traits. The style and method of spelling, too, that they present, was that of the age; and differs no more from the standard of our own period, than ours will probably differ from that of 19 GO.

Of William Barrell himself, to whom these letters were addressed, the following particulars are gleaned from the letter-books and other documents in question. He was the son of John Barrell, who in 1778 appears to have been dwell- ing at London. Of his brothers, there were Joseph, Theodore, and Colborn. There were also two sisters, — Ruth)', married to John Andrews, Esq., of Boston; and another married to Samuel Eliot. Mr. William Barrell seems to have married a sister of John Langdon, Esq., of New Hampshire, in which Colony (at Portsmouth) he was so early as 17G6 engaged in business. Even at this period, he was an uncompromising opponent of those acts of the British ministry that finally cul- minated in producing revolution. On the 14th of April, 1766, he received "the joyful news of the repeal of the cursed Stamp Act. God grant we may soon have it confirmed, and that all the cursed projectors thereof may meet that just infamy and disgrace which is due to every enemy of his country !" About October, 1774, he was established in busi- ness at Philadelphia by the house of Amory and Taylor, of Boston. The undertaking does not seem to have been very successful, and was terminated by his death on the 31st of

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