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Transcribed by Gary Carroll, [email protected]
PAPEI Acc 3744/2738 - Letter from Richard Sloggett, Bath England to Lemuel Cambridge Owen, Mar 31, 1889
23 Pulteney Gardens
Bath, 31st March, 1889
My dear Owen:
We are duly in receipt of your letter of the 2nd inst, and note your remarks with reference to the new Steamer to be built for the Steam Navigation Company. We have to thank you also for the papers. I don't know how it is but I don't feel at all settled here in Bath. The weather too is getting quite fine and mild, and the buds bursting on the trees, and the flowers coming into bloom in the gardens, and the surroundings very beautiful.
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I am not free enough here to do as I like and in many ways I like Colonial life better. Mrs. Sloggett however declines to move under present appearances. if we had left our house and furniture I don't doubt but what we should have gone back in the summer. As it is. we should be very unpleasantly placed to be in Charlotte Town with no house to go into, which Mrs. Sloggett declines to do under any circumstances.
I should not much mind it myself, but it's no use pressing it under such circumstances. The houses that are to let, or to be had, would
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not suit us, as the kind of house we would like is not in the place to be let. The house we left we liked very much, and it was pleasantly situated, but there are no others in the place so pleasantly situated or so fitted with good rooms. Again I have taken the house we are living in for twelve months, and before leaving must give 6 months notice.
For the present we must let the matter stand in abeyance.
Rich is up the Mediterranean, he has been away about a month visiting Algiers and a few other places. We expect him back in about a weeks time. Harry is
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back at Newcastle. He expects another appointment in about a month or so. Fashionable "at homes" have sickened me in Bath. In fact this kind of business does not suit me at all. What it may be in the summer, why one can't say. If I can afford it may take a trip on the Continent with the Swabeys who are going, and have invited us to go with them. It is too tame and flat in Bath for me. We are expecting Captain Richards soon, and am anticipating a trip with him somewhere when he comes over. I see
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by the Island papers that you have commenced business again and building a vessel at Mount Stewart. I dont know much about freight here, only in a general way but from what I can learn they seem to be fairly good on the whole. Let us hope it may continue. Mr. Welsh is working away at Ottawa, have not heard from him lately.
By the bye, I see a new prophet has arrived in Charlotte Town in the person of one Frost. Bravo Frost, and may
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the summer heat not thaw him out, or the whole thing will go up in the clouds to thin air.
We were sorry to hear Mrs. Owen was unwell when you wrote last but trust she is now better and about again. Thank her for her kind offer of hospitality, and wish
kind regards to your mother Mrs. Owen. Miss Mattie and yeoman William in which Mrs. Sloggett desires to join and am yours very faithfully
Richd Sloggett
Tell Will to stick to the farm. He is ten times better off than one half the fellows in this country. It is the fashion now for gentlemen's sons to go into the army as privates when they fail to pass the examination for Lieutenant.