Coppingers of Barryscourt Descriptive List (Ref. U405)

U405

28.

8 December 1750

Le tter to William Coppinger, Barry’s Court, from Stephen Coppinger, Gottenbourgh, expressing joy at hearing from his brother that all are well at Barry’s Court, and that they have settled their ‘tangled affairs’. He continues ‘He informs me my affair with Mr Gallwey is finished, but cant help being surprised, he should lean so heavy on me, as he has done both in point of interest, & other expences. It is not what I expected from his usual regard, & tenderness, and respected assurances of friendship’. He has a lso heard that ‘Mr Gallwey has very lately discovered a bond of myne, for 100 l since in father’s time unpaid’, which he is surprised to hear of, explaining that he only ever received one hundred pounds from his father, and that was incorporated with other debts which Mr Galwey promised to cancel. He asks William to check the date of the deed and whether his father was joined in it. He expects to return in early summer. He continues ‘As to my unhappy affairs here I must tell you that I meet daily disappointments. I had an affair of about 1000 l under [deliberations?] which was first of this month given against me, contrary to the opinion of every one here, & contrary to the repeated declarations of the arbitrators themselves, even two days before it was published, by which you see what justice a strainger is to expect here & what a comfortable life I lead in this cursed place, buried in frost and snow among rocks and savages’. He continues ‘I can with great truth say that Mrs Hall the Curse and Ruin of our family has gott every way – Vitiis & Modis three thousand pounds of my brother’s substance God forgive his soul Amen’. He still hopes to collect ‘something above 4000 a small share in regard to what in justice it ought to be, it is too prolix a story to atte mpt to relate in a letter’. He sends regards to his relatives, and notes that he shortly has a meeting with the magistrates ‘who pretend a right to part of the effects of all foreigners who dye in the town’.

2pp

29.

29 May 1751

Letter to William Coppinger, Barrys Court, from Joseph Coppinger, Corke, sending by the bearer two dozen clams and four gallons of vinegar. He notes that the keg supplied by William was leaky, and that he lost some vinegar before he could get it staunched and hooped. He is, however, only charging for the four gallons this time. He sends his and his wife Molly’s best wishes to William and his family. A note of payment due is given at the foot of the letter, Joseph adding that this does not include the cooper’s charge for putting fi ve hoops on William’s keg. [Letter badly frayed along right edge and top fo ld line].