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CHAPTER 2

HENRY AND ROBERT JOY

1720–1785

The first authentic glimpse of Francis Joy’s sons is found in a letter from Henry to Robert, written in 1745 from Carrickfergus. The Young Pretender had lately raised his forces in Scotland and there were rumours of an attempted invasion of the Antrim coast. As in previous warnings of danger, hundreds of stalwart young men from the neighbouring counties rushed to augment the garrison at Carrickfergus, at that time a place of far greater strategic importance than Belfast, making “a handsome appearance, and going through their exercise with great regularity and exactness”1 when they were reviewed by the Earl of Antrim, Lord Lieutenant of the county. Henry Joy was one of these, and, full of importance and excitement, he wrote to his brother on October 30th, less than six weeks after Charles Edward’s victory at Preston Pans:

Dear Bro.

We are sent down here to keep Garrison, how long we are to remain I cannot tell… I dont believe this place was better garrisoned these many years. The reasons of our coming here you will find in our Paper enclosed. There is no getting furloes and I dont know how we’ll get our business managed and my Father begs you may come down – there are four out of our house viz. Father, I, Michael and Billy Dunn, and the other people have published two papers and design to continue it, but meet with no manner of encouragement, I believe they’ll be obliged to drop it. You must excuse my seldom writing, we are so prodigiously hurried and in continual alarms.

Yours in great haste,

Henry Joy.2

The rival publication was almost certainly the short-lived Belfast Courant,3 and there is more than a suggestion of professional rivalry in its appearance. The Courant was started in 1745, printed by John Magee on paper manufactured by James Blow, both men being already well-established printers in Belfast. Probably they resented the intrusion into their domain of the enterprising lawyer, and determined to retaliate. However, their effort met with little success and continued for only one year.

Brother Robert was in Dublin. Perhaps he was visiting Mr. Slator and his famous paper mills at Saggart and Clondalkin; perhaps, too, he had been one of the vast number who during two days had filed past the coffin of the great Dean of St. Patrick’s, for Jonathan Swift4 had died just one week before the letter from Henry was written – Jonathan, who fifty years earlier, as the young prebend at Kilroot, had made his way so many times along the shore of the lough to Belfast in his ardent wooing of Jane Waring, his Varina.

Be all that as it may, the volunteering episode at Carrickfergus was to have its later far-reaching repercussions.

When their father moved from Belfast, Henry and Robert were twenty-five and twenty-three respectively. Henry took over the notary’s office, and both brothers were responsible for editing and printing the News-Letter. The following years were predominantly a time of happy family life. Of Henry’s wife, Barbara Dunbar, we know little, while the following note from Robert to his fiancée – and second cousin – Grizell Rainey of Magherafelt, suggests that he had had to be a patient and considerate wooer:

My dear Miss Grizzey,

Mr. Rankin has consented to oblige me, provided it be done with secrecy.

And by this time I hope there remains nothing to protract any longer the happy crisis – But that you may not be in any degree disconcerted, I shall not set out till Thursday; when I hope to see you: and shall order it so as our Boy and horse will be with us the next day at Noon – Meantime (as we’ll depend on the Portmantua from Antrim) his carriage may be ready

I am, my Dearest

Yrs. most affectionately

Robert Joy.5

Belfast

Nov. 24. 1751.

The Rev. John Rankin was the recently ordained minister of the new Presbyterian congregation in Antrim. His insistence on secrecy is an interesting reminder that at that date, and until 1847, marriages solemnized by Presbyterian clergymen were illegal. “Miss Grizzey” was greatly admired and loved by all her friends, she and Robert were to be very happy and in the eleven years of their short married life they had six children, but only two of them reached maturity.

Meanwhile the firm of Henry & Robert Joy extended its connections. A considerable amount of printing and publishing other than the News-Letter was undertaken, and it is still possible to pick up books with its imprint. In 1767 the site at Cromac, then outside the confines of Belfast, was acquired on which the Joy paper mill was to be built.

The News-Letters of the period form a fascinating commentary on the growing Belfast. As well as carefully written editorials and occasionally an article in lighter vein, the paper carried detailed reports of proceedings in the Dublin and London Parliaments, news from Europe, Asia and the New World, descriptions of social functions at the Court of George III, and a little legitimate gossip about London society in general. Shipping intelligence was of the greatest importance, and the arrival of vessels in the port of Belfast, and the cargoes they carried were carefully reported: sugar, rice, mahogany and molasses from the West Indies; brandies, wines, fruits and spices from France, Spain and Portugal; timber from Memel and other Baltic ports; as well as the more general trade with London, Liverpool and Scotland. All these imports came in exchange for the salted meat and fish, hides, butter, tallow and linen, produced throughout the province, truly the beginning of Belfast’s seaborne trade. Merchants and shopkeepers in their turn used the paper to advertise their wares – whalebone for stays, hams and cheeses in great variety, velvets and velveteens, serges and sateens, silks and satins – and we read names so soon to become notable in the history of the town: Mr. Getty and his timber, teas and wines; Mr. Neilson and his drapery; Mr. Cunningham displaying all the riches of the West Indies; Mr. Emerson his tobacco and snuff, and so on. There were announcements, too, of local social events, – the coteries in Belfast, the coteries in Ballymena, Dromore and elsewhere, not to speak of cock fights and travelling menageries with their attendant shows. Mr. McGrath the dancing master from Dublin notified the public of his return to town for some weeks, as did the dentist who, also for a few weeks, would be found – strangely enough – at the timber merchant’s at Hanover Key; the peruke maker and the ladies hairdresser were also there, and there is a familiar ring about the constant advertisements for domestic servants, who need not apply unless they can furnish reliable “characters”.

This, and much more, went to make up the bi-weekly issues of the News-Letter and through it all ran the serious purpose of Francis Joy and his sons – the provision of reliable information and the dissemination of the new and liberal ideas in political thought. So, when in 1775 the American colonies embarked on what was to be their momentous struggle for freedom, the proprietors were ready to advocate their cause “with the most undaunted zeal”6 to the great annoyance of their contemporary the Dublin Mercury which burst into the following scurrilous verse:

On the accounts published in the Belfast Journal, relative to the present state of America.

The puritan-Journal, Impress’d at Belfast,

Exhibits the printer’s complexion and cast:

Whose partial accounts of each public transaction Proclaim him the infamous tool of a faction.

From worthy old Faulkner [Faulkner’s Journal, Dublin], to give him his due,

Nought issues, but what is authentic and true;

Each foreign report and domestic relation

Approv’d and admitted on good information.

But … [Joy] the low scribe of a party quite frantic

With zeal for their brethern across the Atlantic

Discreetly and piously chuses to tell

No tidings, but such as come posting from hell.

Thence furnished with news, it is easy to guess,

Why nothing but falsehoods proceed from his press;

Of which he is sure to have constant supplies,

Who still corresponds with the father of lies.7

That the News-Letter was voicing the growing opinion in the town is evident from the report of a meeting held on Nov. 1775,

when a motion was made and seconded (and passed unanimously) that an humble address be presented to His Majesty from the merchants, traders, and other principal inhabitants of the town of Belfast, stating their grievances and apprehension resulting from the present unnatural state of things: their concern, as members of the British empire, for its present disturbed and endangered state: their feelings, as men, for the horrors of civil war now in America: their hopes in the royal mercy for a speedy termination of these: and their prayers for a restoration of the old constitutional system [a reference to the Massachusetts Government Act].8

Henry Joy was one of the 240 signatories to this address.

There were many in Belfast who appreciated the deep issues involved, and as the American struggle continued and political independence was finally achieved, the effect on the minds of the rising mercantile class was very great.

Ulster sympathy in the American struggle was aroused, in part by commercial interests. Her people had already suffered from the self-centred policies that Britain was now inflicting on the colony, and, furthermore, the extensive linen business that Ulster had developed with the eastern seaboard of America was now threatened with dislocation and possible ruin.

But alongside of these commercial ties the people of the North of Ireland had a strong human connection with N. America. Throughout the 18th century as England, in her own interests, successively destroyed the Irish woollen, silk and glass industries, which, in point of fact, were almost exclusively in the hands of English and Scottish settlers, emigration had been continuous and thousands of workers from Ireland were forced to find new homes in America.

Moreover, as the century wore on large sections of the employing classes were forced, by continued economic and financial distress, to leave the country. A report published by the Belfast News-Letter in 1773 deplores this increasing emigration, stating that in the previous two years over 17,000 persons had departed, and estimates that “the North of Ireland has in the last five or six years been drained of one fourth of its trading cash and the like proportion of the manufacturing people. Where the evil will end remains only in the womb of time to determine.”9

Such disruption of industry resulted in continuous suffering amongst the poor in town and country. Lack of work in the country districts – and practically all the spinning and weaving was done in rural areas – meant a ceaseless drift of labourers into the town in search of employment, and beggars and destitute people roamed the streets of Belfast. Early in the century provision had been made by act of Parliament for the erection of work houses from public funds in Dublin and Cork, but else-where in Ireland the care of the poor, entirely dependent on voluntary initiative, was extremely haphazard.

In 1752 steps had been taken by the Sovereign and leading citizens of Belfast to form the Belfast Charitable Society and to inaugurate a fund to build “a poor House and Hospital and a new Church in or near the town of Belfast,”10 an ambitious scheme for the still small community. Lotteries, then as now hailed as a means of producing quick money, were found in this instance to have disappointing results, indeed to have landed the promoters in serious financial complications, partly owing to the skilful manipulation of the lottery market by Dr. Mosse who was at that moment building the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. Not until 1767 were the members of the Society in a position to set out their plans and to request Lord Donegall, to whom all the town belonged, to make over to them the site already promised “on the North West side of the road leading to Carrickfergus … the most convenient place for erecting the intended Buildings, and where they will be most ornamental to the Town of Belfast.”11 By now the care of the destitute was so urgent that the idea of a hospital and church had been abandoned.

Henry and Robert Joy were leading members of the Charitable Society from its early days. Henry’s name is constantly found in connection with the raising of funds – during one gloomy period he was asked to send a messenger every morning and evening to wait upon certain subscribers until outstanding sums were produced – and, when the time came, the lease from Lord Donegall was made out in his name as representing the Society. Later he was appointed one of the “Key Carriers” entrusted with the three keys necessary to open the Society’s chest, the Board directing that the chest itself should be kept in his house “in the small closet adjoining his dining room.”12 The firm of H. & R. Joy undertook the printing and distribution of lottery tickets.13

Meanwhile Robert worked in other directions. Plans of poorhouses and infirmaries were sought from Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow but failed to give satisfaction. Robert, as he pondered on the requirements of the new institution, set about drawing a plan for himself, though, with the reticence of an amateur, he would not produce it to the committee. Nevertheless some members, seeing it privately, were much impressed. It was then decided that an “Architect of Eminence” should be consulted, and “resolved that Mr. Robt. Joy be requested to take with him to Dublin the three plans now delivered in, & such other drawings as are now in his possession, and lay the same before Mr. Cooley, for his examination, with directions to choose out of those four the Plan which he shall most approve of.”14

Thomas Cooley, then at the height of his fame, received Mr. Joy, studied the plans and amended one of them – at a cost to the Society of six guineas. But doubts persisted and were finally resolved by the unanimous adoption of Robert Joy’s own drawing. We may perhaps regret that a great master of Irish Georgian architecture was not permitted to leave his mark on this northern town, and that his design for the Poorhouse has long since passed into oblivion; but as we survey Robert Joy’s simple but beautiful building, the front of which remains exactly as he conceived it, we stand amazed at the extraordinary ability, versatility and public-spirited endeavour of its originator. In the words of David Boyd, later a schoolmaster in the institution,

All labour’d freely in the bless’d employ,

But the most active Mr. Robert Joy;

He took to Dublin with th’ utmost respect,

The various plans, [that] the skilled Architect

Might one approve – the work of choosing past;

His was the plan they voted best at last.

Through the whole business still the active man; –

Here stand the Poorhouse built on Robert’s plan.15

It is even more creditable when one recalls that all this was accomplished at the very time when the brothers were building the great paper mill at Cromac which necessitated the damming of the Blackstaff River to insure an adequate supply of water power, and in which, no doubt, the most up-to-date machinery was being installed; to say nothing of the day to day work of the Belfast News-Letter.

It was sad for Robert that the year 1771 that witnessed the auspicious ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Poorhouse building was the year in which his second son died at the age of 15 – another Robert, a lad greatly loved and of much promise.

All through the building operations Henry and Robert were continually active, Henry concerned with funds and “debentures”, Robert interviewing workmen, buying materials and keeping his eye on every detail of the rising walls; both of them spending apparently hours of time at long and frequent meetings of committee. To the end of his days the Poorhouse and the people in it occupied a foremost place in Robert’s thoughts. His niece, Mary Ann McCracken, remembered with affection how, as a dying man, he was taken to visit it for the last time in a sedan chair.16 Indeed it was his great practical concern for the welfare of the poor both inside and outside “the House” that caused him to embark on another far reaching achievement, for, writes his son Henry:

no sooner were any of his various plans for public utility brought to perfection than the activity of his mind led him to new Objects; which he never failed to prosecute to completion. So early as the year 1777 [Hargreaves and Arkwright had patented their spinning inventions in 1764 and 1769 respectively], on a tour through North Britain, he conceived the scheme of introducing into this then desponding Kingdom, the most intricate Branches of the Cotton Manufacture which had proved unfailing sources of Industry and Opulence to our sister country. In this he was principally prompted by a desire to serve the lower orders of the working poor, particularly linen weavers and spinners whose livelihoods are often precarious, where a nation depends, as ours did, almost solely on a single manufacture sometimes as much depressed as at others prosperous. He possessed himself of the rudiments of a business foreign from any former pursuit of his life. He traced it through its remotest parts at a time when no incentive presented itself in the commercial prospects that have since opened upon Ireland, unaided by that protection which was shortly to be given by the legislature to those very springs of wealth of which indeed he may be called the parent and which he lived to see brought to considerable degree of Perfection.17

Robert Joy inspired his friend Thomas McCabe and together, at their own expense, they installed in the Poor-house the machinery necessary to teach the children in the House to spin and weave cotton, so that they could later be employed, without further apprenticeship, in the mills that he hoped would soon be started in the town. Young Mr. Nicholas Grimshaw was also interested, and though the mill that he built in Whitehouse in 1779 for spinning cotton thread was actually the first in the country, it was followed in 1784 by that of Messrs. Joy, McCabe & McCracken which included weaving also and was the first mill in Ireland to be operated by water power.18

Thus the spectacular era of cotton manufacture in the North of Ireland was started. So rapid was its development that in 1790, only thirteen years after Robert Joy’s tour in Scotland, 500 looms were working in Belfast as against 130 looms for weaving linen and cambric, and it is estimated that eight thousand people were employed in the various branches of the trade within a radius of fifteen miles of the town.19 Fortunes were quickly made and many were as quickly lost. By the 1830s largely owing to recurring war with America, the industry had virtually died, but to the original promoters belongs the credit of introducing mechanised spinning and weaving, thus making possible the revival of linen manufacture on a factory basis.

Lest Robert Joy be accused by the cynical of merely exploiting child labour for his own ends it must be added that he and McCabe paid reasonable rates for work done and arranged the hours to be spent at spindles and looms.

So we come to the last public achievement. Already a newspaper proprietor and co-editor by profession, a paper manufacturer by trade, by interest and inclination an architect and industrial engineer, Robert now turned his attention to military affairs, for it was none other than he, with that directness and foresight that characterised all his projects, who inaugurated the 1st Belfast Volunteer Company – the pattern for the Volunteer movement. War with France had already caused alarm and throughout the country groups of young men had, as formerly, banded themselves together for local protection. When, on April 13th 1778, Paul Jones the American privateer sailed into Belfast Lough fears for the safety of the town increased. Three days later, the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, sixteen survivors of the hastily collected volunteers who manned the fortress at Carrickfergus in 1745 dined together at the Donegall Arms. No doubt it was an occasion for convivial remembrance, and we are told that the toasts were expressive of “loyalty and constitutional liberty”, but the intention of the diners was “to give their countenance and approbation to the spirit now springing up in the place for self-defence, similar to that which appeared here … in the year, 1745.”20

Henry and Robert Joy were certainly there and Robert, immersed though he was in his cotton schemes, realised that the present grave danger demanded a defence force far more carefully organised than previous efforts had been, more especially as the country was denuded of military forces, army headquarters in Dublin being able to provide no more than 60 troopers for the protection of Belfast. He set to work and by the last Sunday in June

the 1st Belfast Volunteer Company paraded, and marched to church in their uniform, which is scarlet turned up with black velvet, white waistcoat and breeches. After the sermon, which was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Graham, a very sensible and polite address was made from the pulpit, in commendation of that laudable spirit which had so early occasioned the formation of the company, and pointing out the very valuable purposes it was calculated to promote. – The clothing of the majority of the Company was of IRISH MANUFACTURE; [an illusion to the widespread movement in the North to support home industry] and the whole made a brilliant and pleasing appearance.21

Amongst the first rush of recruits to this famous company was Robert Joy’s nephew, young Francis McCracken, Mary Ann’s eldest brother. Some weeks later the Chief Secretary wrote from Dublin Castle, seat of the Irish government, that His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant “very much approves of the spirit of the Inhabitants of Belfast who have formed themselves into companies for the defence of the town.”22 And so the great Irish Volunteer movement was established.

The remaining years of Robert’s life must have been crowded with incident. Though the fear of invasion receded, trade continued to decline: “We think ourselves most loudly called upon” declared the Sovereign and Burgesses in 1779, “ by the present crisis, to express our sense of the distresses and calamities in which this ill-fated country is involved, by the decay of trade, by the want of manufactures, and by the impolitic restrictions on our commerce, under which we labour.”23 Such agitation, and the influence that the Volunteers were beginning to wield, induced the British Parliament in 1780 to revoke some of the restrictions previously imposed on Irish trade, and these concessions were welcomed by illuminations and demonstrations in the town, and a long address of thanksgiving was sent to George III. In the same year the Test Act was repealed so that Presbyterians were no longer debarred from holding official positions. Nevertheless uneasiness and distrust continued, “and an opinion daily gained ground, that without a legislature totally independent of the British parliament, the privileges of a commerce granted to this country would be quite precarious.”24 The subsequent spectacular progress of the Irish Volunteers – the reviews in Belfast, Lord Charlemont’s stirring message: “Go on – Persevere – Oppression is impossible, and Ireland must be happy”; their meetings, their addresses, their dinners and toasts; the great convention at Dungannon in 1782 and, finally, independence and “Grattan’s Parliament” – belongs in detail to the general history of Ireland, though in spirit to this story. The Volunteer movement grew from Robert’s plan, its political triumph – four years after its inception – was in no small measure due to the constant support of the “Principal Inhabitants of Belfast”, and it constituted the milieu in which the next generation grew up.

We have no record of Robert Joy’s personal feelings at the achievement of Irish freedom: probably, in his wisdom, he realised that much would still need to be done before all the benefits could be reaped, but even he could not foresee that in less than four years after his death a revolution in France would turn his world upside down, and that because of it, the next generation would use to such different purpose the tool that he had fashioned.

At the end of his full but not long life [he was sixty-three when he died in 1785] the Rev. J.T. Bryson, Minister of the 2nd Presbyterian Congregation and Chaplain to the Belfast Volunteers, wrote these words:

Sunday night last died Mr. Robert Joy, one of the proprietors of the Belfast News-Letter. His character was uniformly marked with striking characteristics of unaffected Piety, and extensive Goodness. Possessed of an imagination capable of conceiving largely; of an understanding capable of digesting minutely; and of a Heart capable of attempting and promoting liberally the designs of public and private good – his life is a fitter subject of History than of Description. The extensive share he had in designing, promoting and bringing into use the Establishment in the Town in favour of the young and aged poor; his attempt to preserve Industry among the old, and the knowledge of useful Arts among the young; his being the Introducer of the Cotton Manufacture into this Province, and the Father – the Venerable Father of the Volunteer Army in it – are sufficient Illustrations of his worth and the Writer’s sincerity. His Modesty as a man, his Kindness as a neighbour, and his exalted Sensibilities as a Parent and Friend, need no praise among those who knew him well, and by those who did not know him, a just picture would be deemed flattery. In his Public Character he was bold and wise in his designs, persevering and circumspect in their execution. It may be truly said of this good man, that he lived more for his Country than for himself or Family, but he possessed the happy Talent of putting great machines in motion without material injury to his own Fortune, which others might continue with great improvement of theirs. Thus without hurting himself in any Thing, he became the Instructor of the Province in many things. May that God who sent him as an Instrument and Example of Industry and Goodness bless this country with many successors to his Virtue in both.25

Robert’s brother, Henry, survived him by some four years. From 1759 to 1772 he was deputy Town Clerk of Belfast, the designation of “deputy” being in all probability a convenient method of by-passing the prohibitions of the Test Act; certainly there is no suggestion that Henry Joy was merely a second in command. He was one of the group of merchants who established in 1783 the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, following “the plan which has been adopted by our Worthy and Highly Respected Brethren, the Merchants of Dublin.”26 The Belfast Chamber must rank among the oldest in the three Kingdoms, and it is of interest that one of its first public acts was to petition the Irish House of Commons for assistance in developing the harbour, by substituting for the difficult “meandering line” of deep water connecting the Pool of Garmoyle [where it was necessary for ships to await the high tide] with the Quay, a “straight cut which would for ever be kept open by the Waters of the River Lagan running therein”, 27 and which would enable vessels of large burthen to pass conveniently up and down, – the first of the engineering feats that have resulted in the great Port of Belfast.

The provision of facilities for marketing white linens in Belfast was one of Henry’s projects. Lisburn and Lurgan were at this time the principal linen markets of the North, and it was only in 1773 that the Marquis of Donegall had given Belfast its Brown Linenhall. Brown or unbleached linens were bought by bleachers and, after being treated, were taken to Dublin where the central market for white linen was attended by buyers from England and the Continent. Naturally it would be most beneficial if some of this trade could be diverted to Belfast, and no doubt the enterprising owners of the extensive bleach greens that were being set up around the town – for example the Sinclaires – welcomed such a scheme. Henry’s efforts resulted in the building, by a group of citizens, of the White Linenhall in 1783 to the cost of which he and Robert made generous contributions, and which remained one of the dignified landmarks of the city until it was demolished at the close of the 19th century to make way for the present City Hall.28

On May 1st 1781 Henry was elected a burgess of the town. This had no particular democratic significance, for the electoral roll was confined to the Sovereign and the Burgesses whose doings were closely scrutinized by Lord Donegall, but his election, coming a year after the repeal of the Test Act, testifies to the high regard in which this uncompromising Whig was held. For such were Henry’s political views, and as he trained his nephew, another Henry, in the News-Letter office, strong Whig principles were anchored in the young man’s mind. This second Henry is known always as Henry Joy, jun., and on his uncle’s death he assumed sole responsibility for the paper.

Once again Henry senior was honoured by his fellow-citizens when, just a few months before his death, they expressed to him their “gratitude for the innumerable services rendered by him in a long series of years to his fellow-citizens: as a promoter of concord, by preventing litigious suits, as an able and upright Counsellor, an impartial Arbitrator – and an Honest Man.”29 He was much pleased by this recognition. In his will he left to his son Henry, known for many years as Counsellor Joy, the cup and cover “lately presented to me by the principal inhabitants of Belfast, in the hope that his conduct through life may be such as to entitle him to be as honourably remembered by his fellow-citizens.”30 Henry’s wife had predeceased him many years. In this same will he charges his two youngest daughters, Harriet and Grizell, “to pay all respect and obedience to their Aunt Dunbar who has behaved to them as an affectionate parent since the death of my dearly beloved wife.” and he bequeaths to this lady “thirty guineas and a ring as a token of my gratitude, respect and esteem.”31

For, however notable were his public achievements, Henry Joy was essentially a family man. His children loved him, and he must have watched with pride his young son Henry embark on a career that was to end as Chief Baron of the Irish Court of Exchequer. It is an interesting sidelight on the rising financial status of the Joy brothers that Henry, as well as providing liberally for his other children, was able to educate this son in Dublin, London and Paris.

To his sister Ann McCracken Henry was a constant friend and adviser, especially during the long absences from home of her sea-faring husband; the two families lived side by side in High Street. He was always sociable – in the early days when, perhaps, life was not quite so full, he had time to go round to Tim’s Coffee House in Bridge Street, to listen to old Dominick Mangan playing his harp, – he considered Dominick a good harpist; and when that interesting young man David Manson opened his little brewery Henry Joy would turn in for a mug of ale and long discussions on politics and education.

He died in January 1789. An obituary notice, long and formal, emphasises the affection with which he was regarded “Too modest to court the attentions of any he was beloved by all”. “He was the blessing of the town and neighbourhood” for, professional lawyer though he was, “he prevented law suits, composed differences and gave opinions which were received with almost unbounded confidence, because they were known to proceed from enlarged ideas, and inflexible integrity. While every other person admired his prudence and revered his knowledge, he alone beheld them with diffidence … he lived the wise, the kind, the invaluable friend of all, and dies without the enmity of any.”32