Bouverie, Mrs

Hannah More to Patty More, 4 August 1794 [copy, presented to EM Forster by his great aunt, Marianne Thornton

I suppose by this time you expect I should give you some account of my adventures I am not yet at the place of my destination I got to Hertford Street in time to drink tea with the & & the who very gallantly appeared soon after me. carriage came for me after breakfast & carried me to Battersea Rise to dinner where were both the Masters & & . carriage took me after dinner the next stage where to my great surprise was waiting to carry me to my journeys end Theres politeness for you! Dont you think that the Masters improve! At Bitchworth the fine who fought the duel the other day, was stopping with his pretty wife. He says the breakfasted with him the day before & told him that all was over between him & . I asked him if he thought they were ever married – he thinks not but is not sure

Hannah More to Henry Thornton, September 12th 1799

This Subject of Money leads me to say (which I did not intend) that I believe I must desire you not to give away the Interest of Mrs. Bouveries’s Money any more but to let me have it; do not however tell her this just now. I am now engaged for such very large expences, that, humanly speaking, I do not very well see how I shall get thro it, and my faith /which is not over strong/ is kept pretty much on the sketch. Assessed Taxes and some other things have reduced my Sisters’ Income £150 a Year and they spent all before; as I shall feel it right to help towards this deficiency I shall not be able to make /the new/ addition towards the Schools which I had hoped I will not however distrust that Providence which has so unexpectedly carried me on hitherto and I hope to use these little difficulties and uncertainties as an exercise of my trust in him, You will think so when I tell you that in spite of the continued opposition at Wedmore we are building a house there says she thinks we tire you with our Stories, I will however tell you one which I think will be much to taste. After going on Sunday to Wedmore (30 miles there and back) on the wettest day I was ever out in we found our poor 300 Children assembled in the half finished room without a floor a door or a window, we taught them with great peace and content, not one of the Farmers condescending to come nigh us, or offering the least accommodation tho the rain was so violent /but I borrowed a Cottage/ At length the season came out – The children had /been/ trying to sing for the first time one of Watt’s Hymns, this brought a Farmer who said now he was sure we were Methodys; on being asked what gave the Parish such a terror of Methodists he said this was his answer – ‘Some years ago a Methody preacher came and preached in our Orchard under my Mother’s best apple tree, immediately after the leaves withered and the tree died; we saw at once this was a judgment, and called a vestry to see what could be done to save our Orchards; We there agreed that we shoud not have an Apple left in the parish if we suffered a Methody to stay, so we ordered the people to get all the stones and rotten eggs they could muster, and beat the whole crew out of the Parish; they did so, and sure enough it saved our Orchards for we have not lost an Apple tree since’. I have told it verbatim – This is the enlightened 18 Century! One woud put up with a little ill treatment to instruct such a parish as this in spite of itself