Drowned Lives

Pipehill, Lichfield, Staffordshire. Friday 17th Jan. 1800.

To Reuben Wheeldon Esq., Warner Street, Ellesmere, Cheshire.

My dear friend,

I confess I am utterly confounded. Every thing gives me additional disturbance. Yet I am loath to think myself of so much importance as to suppose every one in a plot against me. After all, I hope the best; but if this should turn out to be a plot, nothing, I fear, but a Miracle can save me. Can the heart of man be capable of such black deceit?

I have passed two days at Burton and in the Neighbourhood, during which I have had occasion to call on my brother. I fear he passes his time swallowing doses of oblivion, as I found him more full of blue ruin than good manners. And he said, in an indirect way, that I had no Business there.

As for my Friends in Lichfield, I am heartily sick of them, for they have deceived me sadly. Do we not see hypocrisy, selfishness, folly and impudence succeed while Merit is trodden underfoot? The web of human life unravels into threads of Meanness, Spite and Cowardice, want of feeling and of indifference towards others. I have been mistaken in my public and private hopes, always disappointed where I placed most reliance. I am a bitter bad judge of the characters of men.

The grievous affliction I am now suffering under is of the bitterest kind, because it is proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. Now my Enemies spread calumny about me. I have become the butt for paltry spite. If they take away a man’s Character, there is no degree of turpitude or injustice that they may not introduce into the measures and treatment which we consider as most fit for them.

My friend, this is a trying time. It is now the heart sickens, as I think what they are about and how short a time will determine my Fate. Mr P. has presumed too much on himself, but I haven’t done with him yet.

Your friend,

Wm Buckley