ROSE MYLREA to JOHN TAUBMAN snr

LETTER - 1786 (Ireland)

Strangford, 13th November 1786

Mr John Taubman

Sir

I had the honour of writing to you some time ago requesting the favour of you to postpone the sale of my son Daniel Mylrea’s part of the red herring house at Douglas to which letter I had not the pleasure of receiving an answer and since which I have had more leisure to consider the affair more particularly and am in the strongest hope that you have not proceeded with the sale of the said house but that you will be so kind as to lay aside all thoughts of so doing and accept of the following proposal which if you are so kind as to comply with I am determined faithfully to fullfill, that is to say that you still hold the security given you by Dan Mylrea on his part of the herring house for the debt due you by him which I am informed is about six hundred and forty pounds British and I on my part promise and oblige myself to pay for the full amount of the said debt with the legal interest that may arise thereon at or upon the expiration of two years from the date hereof and that you then make me an assignment of the present security you have from Dan Mylrea on said herring house.

I assure you sir on the word of a Christian that if I could at present raise this sum involved I would not ask a day’s time for the discharging of this debt but I would choose always to be punctual in every transaction is what makes me request this length of time but rest assured that if I can raise the sum sooner than the two years it shall be as and when I receive it. I am sir, your most obedient servant, Rose Mylrae

and JOHN TAUBMAN's reply

with thanks to Frances Coakley who found and transcribed the following

Mrs Rose Mylrea at Strangford

9th Dec 1786

Madam

I recd your favor 13th ulto and observe its contents - I also Recd your former letter, which should have answd in due course, if your Son had called on me for it, but as I could not once think of complying with your request, I thought it unnecessary to give you the expence of postage - The debt owing me by your Son, was in money lost him some years ago, and for which he at first passed a mortgage on his estate in Ballaugh but he having afterwards thought proper to sell that estate, in order to enable him to do so, I very foolishly cancelled and gave up my security and took his bond for my demd which was an act of friendship that few would have done.

The ammt of the debt that was due me £623:12:8 English money and he sold me his third of the Herring house for this money on the 16th day of Septr last - which was more than any other person in this Isle would give for this concern, however in case you think it a bargain, I am still ready & willing to take my money, and surrender or give up all the right he has given me to you, or any friend of yours, provided I am imdly paid my money with Interest & charges.

But I must beg leave to be excused from giving two years or even two months, for the paymt of my mony - It would rediculous in the extreme to act so absurdly and highly unreasonable in any one to require such a thing I am very truely &c

NOTES

  1. Rose's son, Daniel Mylrea, was obliged to surrender his (1/3) share in the business in which he was in partnership with Robert Heywood and John Taubman snr because of his endebtedness to Taubman. Daniel had borrowd £575 from Taubman the previous year and this had evidently ballooned out to £640
  2. Less than a decade previously, Daniel was should have been a wealthy young man, having sold off the family estate, the Dollough in 1777 for about £3,000
  3. Taubman's letter leave no doubt that he had no intention of taking up Rose's offer. He enforced the debt in 1787
  4. In 1802, Taubman's son & Robert Heywood sold the herring house for over £1,000
  5. Irish records from that period are scant and apart from a listing of Rose dying in Strangford (Ireland) in 1791, there is little further information about Rose

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Last updated: Oct 2021