Petsbay June 2nd 1818
Thi neither you nor I would now know
each other, yet your intimacy with my father will certainly
wence this likesty on my part- Since you came to
country there has not been valettes but one need from
you by your friend in Ireland, which has rendered them
very unhappy- Wailing is the only 1 happing that absence
grants to Meal friend d you must pointion and for the saying that
you ought not. to omit it, as Ican afence you affection of
your Brothers I sistin is an sincered I unchallen as ever its
was Many time Have heard them that they
them will be such as to excuse your past neglest A Sam
olid not hear from you your future attention. to
but afew days landed in this country from Orilan of can give
the preverped news there, Iftentten myself adita' of them
you will not be indifferent you - your Brother Alex High
Jummy are will_ Alex has alange family but most of them
to do at his trade, is able to take abearly drink now I them
are grown up I able to do for themselves- the still has plenty
Hugh is married to Nany Capeland I has got two fine children
The lives very comfortably a in industrious James
work with Alive your Brothermlan Mosey Hamilton is
de dead some time ago, but I believe his family one all will
Billy wife of family and will_ your sister fenny
married James Martin o they live pretty will in alittle shot
of land belonging to the Mateens Andrew clia their married
a of Frank Hamilton, I has pot four or five children
the he is often latting of I'm Thank Scott is still alive but he
but James has never found in his heart to venture on awife
is threatened with acancer on his shin which I am affraid will
soon tathe him off His son John became a doctor 5 is married
of doing will in Dromone- 1 Rob Copiland's family are nearly
all married Old William Jeremy are both widowers
this some time past, but A is not expected they will ever
marry again - old Jenning Fewart is dead He signed over his land
From C. SaintField, Co. Down.
The Balch Institute, Philadelphia
Daniel Polin, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to William Bennet, near Mercer, Mercer Co., Pennsylvania, 2 June 1818
Description
This is a fascinating letter by an idealistic Irish republican, probably a Catholic, from the vicinity of Saintfield, County Down, who landed in Baltimore just "a few days" before posting this letter to Bennet, an old family friend and neighbor. After upbraiding Bennet for not having written more than one letter to his sorrowing kinsmen in the many years since his emigration, Polin gives detailed news about Bennett's kinfolk and old neighbors, and about his own widowed father and his siblings, two of which, his elder brother Arthur and younger brother James, have accompanied Daniel to America. Daniel formerly taught at an "academy" in Newtownards, Co. Down. He and James hope to become "teachers of the languages" in America, while Arthur plans to become a farmer-which is why the brothers did not remain in Baltimore and came West instead. Conditions are unpromising in Pittsburgh, and so Daniel plans to travel further West to another Ulster emigrant, John Kelly, who lives in Springfield, Washington Co., Kentucky. The best part of Polin's letter is his detailed lament for Ireland's "wretched" economic and political condition. Irish farmers and manufacturers are going bankrupt, and the country is groaning under exorbitant taxation to pay off the national debt. Polin believes that there is no hope for Ireland except in a successful revolution (which he believes the oppressed people of Scotland and even England wish for, also), but the British government has succeeded in disuniting the Irish people, and Protestants (even including some Presbyterians) and Catholics are now hopelessly divided into Orangemen and Thrashers, respectively, and frequently engaged in violent confrontation-while the churches have become agents of the state. Polin thus views emigration as a form of political "exile" but also as a happy "escape" from tyranny to the US as a land of freedom and refuge to the "unfortunate and oppressed" of all countries. In sum, this is a classic statement of the idealized marriage of Irish and American republicanism.
