Wills and Lydia Anstis, Bandon, County Cork, to Wills's brother-in-law, Robert Eedy, [St. Peters, Bay de Chaleur, New Brunswick], 29 July 1827
Description
Anstis is as literate as Huston, but he seems to be much more impoverished, and all his letters balance misery and disappointment with evangelical faith and optimism. Anstis is an impoverished cotton weaver; apparently, in the past he had enjoyed some security by renting small amounts of land to graze a cow and raise potatoes, but in this letter, and in later ones, he seems to suffer repeated evictions and seizures of his few possessions. A detailed and dramatic letter, which reports both the general, deepening Irish distress and his own specific plight. Emigration seems rampant, and Anstis has hoped and planned to join his relatives in New Brunswick, but can 't afford the passage.