Letter to Ann Hull Maury (Herndon)

Scope and content:

Written from the Office of Colonization, Mexico. Letter regards a potential trip to England, the situation in Virginia, and colonization.

Language:

English .

Other descriptive data:

Office of Colonization
Mexico
Nov. 27th 1865

My dear wife:
The last steamer from New York brought us three days ago from the indefatigable Rutson copies of your dear letters to Bettie and Cousin Ann, and Tom Bold's letter to Rutson, reporting you as his guest till Xmas and all well. Also letters from Nannie and Cousin Ann, press copies of which even also sent to you.

I reckon, maybe I have "gone [clean] daft," that my children and friends should think it necessary to write me such letters and make me such appeals. But it looks to me mightily like I have done, and am doing the thing that is right, wisest and best - Surely it was worth some sacrifice of feeling on your part as well as mine, and the endurance of a little longer separation to get Dick so snugly established as he is likely to be here-

My own; no, our own mutual interests require that I should be in England at no distant day, and not being a prophet I could not foresee the turn that things would take, which would compel me to be here now, instead of half way across the sea towards your sweet embraces and my children's arms-

The rainy season sets in the last of May and continues till Oct. Nov- this too is the sickly season, Yellow Fever both in Vera Cruz and West Indies - This is the time of year when immigration must stop and when therefore I can best be spared from my duties here - Now, between these months of May and October, I should be afraid to risk a voyage from here to England or the reverse.

I was afraid to leave you in Virginia because I was afraid and am afraid of troubles there. See what is going on in South Carolina and La. now. From the accounts I received from you and the children as to the difficulties on the score of servants, and other matters, I could not bear the idea of your encountering this winter in Virginia, surrounded as I fancied you would be, with such material discomfort - You remember my continued anxiety upon this subject during the war; and how last Spring I urged you to go North, surround yourself with material comforts and await events.

Therefore having to go to England at the earliest moment practicable (and that will be in the Spring on account of the sickly season and official duty here and I can't venture back, until the dangers of Yellow Fever are over) I thought England the best place for you to wait; and I thought they to join you in Dec.

In this sketch I make no allusion to the other reasons which we have so freely discussed before, and for which it was also wisest and best for you and the children to go to England - Bless my little Lucy's heart, I did not know before that she stammered—

Now then:- suppose I were to heed Bettie and Nannie, Cousin Ann and Rutson and write for you to come. You might be able to leave by the Str. of 1st Jan - but more probably not before February - That would bring you here about 4th March - And then, by the last of April at furthest I should have to leave for England - where on account of Yellow Fever by the way back, I should have to stay till Oct. You would then be left here with a people speaking an unknown tongue for six or seven months and these six or seven months we had better spend together in "merrie old England" I think, that in dodging each other behind "Albion's chalky cliffs" and the sierras of Mexico - Don't you? –

Another thing: - and this is among my muttered thoughts, and if, and if and if all these ifs should conjoin, I may not come back - This though is way down deep among the remote contingencies of the future - It is not to be mentioned, except with injunctions, even to the most reticent, for still more reticence, for there is not enough of consistency about it, even for you to hang a hope upon - I can only contemplate it so far as to let the possibility of it enter into my calculations, so that should that possibility turn out a reality, I should not be taken by surprise.

Hey Ho! This thing of being so opposed by friends, when one "feels it in his bones," that he is doing what is right, wisest and best; this having to defend and explain and excuse oneself, and all in vain: - the feeling added to and piled up above this, that I am prejudged and condemned by children and friends who don't know - makes me feel, - oh! so flinty! I am right - and I must keep so. I sink myself I live for the reflected pleasure which the happiness and approving smiles of my wife and children alone can give - And the hope of this sustains, cheers and comforts me. And if they will but have patience with me, and God will spare me, this I will do yet - I hope—

Dick is a great help and comfort to me - Bless his heart, he wins upon me every day - so crippled! yet so patient, so devoted to his new duties and so hardworking - He surprises and delights me with his business tact and capacity. He is so handsome too and in his nice new clothes looks the gentleman every whit-

Here, my dear, precious darling wife, is a great reward to you and consolation too, for this vexations separation;- and a proud, nay a glorious vindication too of the wisdom so far, of the course pursued by your husband in coming here - Suppose, instead of coming here last Spring, I had remained in England, or gone to Halifax to bide my time - Perhaps we should have been together now in England, - But what would have become of him? You know I became very uneasy about the tendency of his habits in consequence of the taste engendered by those immense doses of medicine which when wounded he was compelled to take. With those habits upon him, I trembled at the idea of seeing him risk alone and unaided, as he must have done, the battle of life there in Va. - Under such ordeals, there was no telling what might have become of him - Suffice it to say, the apprehensions and the fear that he would give way, haunted me - Now I find he is safe from that at any rate. He has position, with head and hands full of honorable and useful employment - with emoluments all things considered such as you and I, even in the balmy days of our "munificent provision' never enjoyed - He was consulting me today about buying some Cordova lands- I had it in my mind to bring Corbin here and induce him to settle upon them. And tho I believe he and Nannie would have come, if I had but urged them, yet in the face of so much opposition, I did not have the heart to do it - In the olden times Cordova was the garden spot of New Spain.

Price, Perkins, Shelby, Harris and all our people who have been there say it has the most delightful climate and the finest soil they ever saw. There stands on one side of it and but a little way off, the Peak of Orizaba with its cap of everlasting snow, and on the other the sea in full view-

When slavery was abolished suddenly fifty years ago- as with us- down it went - and its splendid Haciendas and baronial old mansions are now in ruins. They were heavily in debt to the church and as the church property has been confiscated, not by the Emperor, he took possession of these estates for colonization- The railway hence to Vera Cruz passes right through there and I am now selling them to immigrants as fast as they can be surveyed, at $1 the acre, on five years credit. There are about 40 of our people already there. Perkins has bought him a house and has sent for his wife - so has Shelby, and so has a number of others - Mr. Holdman and Episcopal clergyman with his family - nice people, has been engaged by the settlement as pastor, teacher etc and I am going to reserve land for a church, school house, cemetery etc.

Thus you see my dear, sweet wife, colonization is not a chimera- By the time these lands are paid for they will be worth even if no more come to the Empire, $10, $20, $30 aye $100 the acre - for they produce everything under the sun, and yield perpetual harvests. What do you think of coffee growing wild, of fig trees 100 feet high, and 3 feet in circumference - and the most luscious pine apples at a cent apiece? Yet they tell me all these things are there. Now if I could have gotten Corbin here on one of these stately old Haciendas - he would with his skillful husbandry have made it bud and blossom again, and thus we should have found us a nest again. There is a great rush for this settlement, and it is here that Dick wanted to go, but as he was my son, I advised him against it, because there are not lands enough for them all. However I am going to extend the settlement and then Corbin and Nannie can come.

Lafayette Caldwell who used to be draftsman at the Observatory has sent for his family, Magruder for his, and there is a number of families already here. Some of them established in this city, but they are going to break up, and go down to this "new" dear old Spottsylvania.

Now if I can only get lands surveyed in time and there is a probability of this, -"Here is your New Virginia"- There are other settlements forming in other parts of the Empire. Colonization is a success if we can only find instruments and get surveyors to bring the lands into market. The people of the South are restrained from prudential considerations from speaking of their intentions. But we have letters. Thousands are dying to come. And I hope to have a decree this week which will put them in motion. Hurrah! -----30th The decree has come with an appropriation of $2,000,000.

[Verso] N York [ ] [ ]
This was sent to my sister for her and for my perusal (exclusively) and with the same injunction of reticence as to the "-if, if & if" matter - to apply to you and to Nannie we were requested to send this for you and for her perusal.

Subjects:

Mexico—History
Correspondence

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