MY DEAR JEM

My Dear Jem,

Be not down and desponding.  Was I ever so much distressed for want of my good, kind Husbande?  You are dearer to me than my own Life.  I have no cause to shun you.  Poor Jem, I pitty you and know you to be inoscent of any wrongdoing.  O how pinched and poor as church-mouses, not a scrap to eat and scarcely cloathing.  Few people can know what it is to taste the hunger of the Grave or walk abroad in rags.

I haven’t gone a-begging, not I, but have done some sempstressing work.  It made for such a fine Banquit of cold Mutton and broth that our sickely children got belly-ache.  I am quite wearied out with worriting.

Try to be of good cheer, my dear.  Sinney Island cannot be near so frightful as you fancy.  But it is a long Confinement for six months sail.  I have wrote a Pertition to Lord Sidmouth to send me out straightway, but the Gentelmen are always as busy as the Devil in a gale Wind and only quiz how I might suport all’us.  With my Needle, says I, and a willing pair of hands and a honest Hart.  Your a good trout, they says, but where’s the Chinks?

Hold firm and be patient, I will think of somethink.  My Hart sinks in my Boots at the thought of lurching up and down in a small Boat riding high waves in dreadful Rough Wether.  Then I shudder more so at the cruell Prospect of never setting Eyes on you no more.  All these strange things I cannot quite comprehend.

I hope you are beter used than those poor creeturs in double irons.  Fate has played upon us most dreadful, but we must hope for a beter World. 

I pray for your Releasement night and day.  Heaven is my Witnesse as my own Hart is.

                             Your loving Wife as ever is,

                                              Emma

                                        Michael Small                  March 20-April 9, 2004