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14 Jul 58 Peter Hong Kong Father 5, Hyde Park Place West ______________________________________________________________________________________________
Hong Kong
14 July 1858
My dear Father
As this is to be a busy week, I must begin my letter early tho’ the mail does not leave till the 22nd.
I received a famous long letter from you for which many thanks & I also received the Box, the contents of which you say I must accept as a present – for which also manythanks. It certainly was a most useful present & is most highly appreciated by me for the various items would be most fearfully expensive here & then would not have half the interest or be thought half so much of, as they do thus, coming from home.
I have written to Sir Peter by this mail, thanking him for the ‘Weekly’ which is really a capital & instructive paper & which will be quite an acquisition. The best plan will be to send it out regularly by post. I have also written as you suggested to Mrs Laurie at Morleys* as indeed I had previously intended doing. As to Rand & B, I will see about that but these thing had better not be done in a hurry.
Julius I have heard from & also Blyth, but strangely not from John in answer to my letter telling him of my where abouts. I cannot make this out, as all his other letters have reached me pretty regularly altho’ the home ones never did. By the bye, whenever you send anything out to me again, please give me some clue to it. I wonder I ever received it at all. Either a receipt of Bill of Lading or at least who it was shipped by & to whom consigned. I find it was shipped by Wheatley & Co., consigned to Duns & Co. This is quite right if you had only told me so. Next time do not insure under value but considerably over – that is to say, on the value in Hong Kong.
White MP is very well known here, but always as a ‘queer fellow’ who somehow was ‘awfully lucky’. The fact was he speculated & was lucky, but speculation is dangerous & not always lucky.
The Bed table & chair idea is no doubt perfectly Chinese, but you must not think that we are all Chinamen because we are in China. If you do just come & look at us & it will astonish you. All the Chinese in Hong Kong, our Compradors & servants have orders from the Mandarins to ‘clear out’ or their relations in China will pay the penalty. So in about a week’s time we shall be in a pretty fix – cooking our own dinners, making our own beds &c. and all this time, as you will see by the papers, a treaty of ‘everlasting friendship’ has been signed in which they have given in everything. But that is in the North & the Chinese here know nothing about it, for of course they will not believe the word of a Barbarian. The end will be Mr Hwang will get his head cut off. ‘Let every one tremble & obey’.
I have found out Mr Turner. Cooper Turner he calls himself, but do not think him a very dangerous character. He is a little fast, but not in the go-ahead line. A quiet-fast man who likes to have everything correct & No. 1. He is very like his brother, Chas. Turner.
Poor little Helen. I was very sorry to hear she was so bad, but by the time you receive this, it will be long over & almost forgotten & those things are best forgotten. I can quite imagine the state of mind my Mother must have been in. Tell Willie* not to be too cheap. How can it cost more than a dressing gown is worth to send it out here, where every dressing gown in the place has to come out first. I should like to know why he has not congratulated me too. It would only add one letter to those numerous ones he writes every day to his mother, father, brothers, uncle &c. However you were quite right in not sending it on that occasion & indeed it would be too heavy for this climate.
Arthur, I think should have gone overland. It is more aristocratic but that is nothing. The fact is his pay dates from his arrival in Madras not from date of leaving England, altho’ his promotion ranks from the latter. The passage money appears greater but really is not for everything is furnished by the P&O Coy. whereas nothing is by Queens. So that it costs in the end, what with extra charges for wives for instance. Just as much as if you had paid £120 down & he gets there 2 months late & loses 2 mos. pay.
As we have only one carriage road here, coaches are not in great vogue. There are some half dozen pony phaetons. Whenever there is any heavy rain, this one road gets washed away & this occurred about a fortnight ago. The roads are not yet fit for carriages to drive upon. You tell me not to think of races & all that sort of thing. Why we are the very people that get them up. The race time too is a general holiday & as it occurs at the time of Chinese New Year, it is equally holiday with both.
And now last not least, two subjects.
You ask my advice respecting Alfred & Frankie. At eleven years old, let them go to a public school. Alfred will be too delicate for China or even for a sedentary life. He must have a healthy profession & if he is not too delicate I think you could not do better than let him follow his 3 brothers. If so, of course he would go to Sandhurst. I think there are quite enough in the Army but still I think the only way to keep up his health is to accustom him to good active healthy pursuits & after all, in a few years at Harrow & Sandhurst, he might grow out of delicate health.
Frankie should leave school at 16. Go into a ship brokers (Lindsays) office for two years, then into a merchants & learn something about tea & silk for two years more. Come out here at twenty & who knows what I might be able to do for him then.
And little Helen! What is my advice respecting her. That I think I must leave to my Mother, only hoping that she may equal her in all virtues & when some day she drops the name of Laurie, she may change it for one equally triumphant & untarnished.
The other subject concerns yourself. You say you do not think it would be worth you spending any more hundreds to regain a seat, which by the bye I am happy to see you have not lost. I do not refer to politics, for by the time you receive my letter they would be those (politics) of three months back & consequently fearfully stale. Still, you must not on that account think I do not take interest in them. You say it would cost you hundreds – True! but would it not be worth thousands.
Look at it in a worldly matter of fact point of view. Suppose you saved those hundreds. They would someday be divided amongst your children, but what would they be amongst 8. Then look at the other picture. Look at the influence those hundreds bring you. What command that affix. MP has. At the Horse Guards, everywhere & is it not worth thousands.
Take my own case for instance. As the son of a plain Mr Laurie, I might go on working away here & do very well, but never get beyond that. But as the son of Mr Laurie MP I gain a standing in the house & eventually it might greatly influence Mr Jardine in giving me a share in the business, considering as he doubtless would, the position which you held & the advantage which that position might be to other interests of the firm. In my case, it would be a matter of thousands.
I think you will agree with me in the truth of what I say tho’ of course I do not mean that to influence your inclination which is quite another matter tho’ I do think that if you would give up business entirely & amuse yourself with ‘the House’ & its concerns, it would be better than sticking to the former (& laying yourself open to schemers) & surrendering the position & influence which the latter must give you.
Your affect. Son
Peter G Laurie
21 July. The mail arrived last night & I received a letter from you. You say ‘your Mother gives you all the news’ & I never got a letter from her.
I did not get yours till late this morning so that I was in despair. I know it is a great tax upon one’s friends to expect them to write but you do not know how heartrending it is to those far away from home to see a mail come in & their companions all happy over their family news & to have none one’s self. You say Sir Peter says I do not write my name plain enough. I do not perhaps when in a hurry or when squeezed into some corner of a sheet of paper, but I think at all times where it is necessary to be careful it is distinct enough. You say you asked what they were going to do with Yeh. The Foreign Sec'ry said he would sell him if you would purchase. Buy him by all means – buy him – he will be a capital spec. At a shilling a head, you would soon realise a large fortune & I will come home & give the lecture.
I received a letter from Julius too, of a previous date to the other, in which – tell my Mother – he does congratulate me. He seems quite happy only I unfortunately yesterday sent away a letter by one of our steamers abusing him most unmercifully. If you can buy the ‘Nana’ we might exhibit Yeh & him together, in which case Julius would have to do his share.
They are both two savage beasts & one of them certainly has a tail.
If at any time you or my Mother are not able to write, get Mary to do so or some one else. I should like to hear from Mary sometimes but I suppose it is hopeless expecting that. You say that you have just heard from Matheson’s that Goddard is not expected for some time. Now we heard at least a month ago of his arrival from himself & last mail (not this one) described him as doing the park every afternoon with his sisters. He promised to call on you but is such a queer fellow I daresay he forgot all about it. Still, you should find him out. There is no doubt about his having been at home for a month previous to yr. letter but I daresay he has never even appeared at Matheson’s.
Arthur is quite mistaken about living on his pay. He can do it because many do. But he will be a solitary instance of one who can get an allowance & doesn’t. The Indian Army is not a bit better paid than ours. They get double pay but they get double expenses at the same time. I heard from Blyth the other day. He has not seen Arthur. He calls me ‘old fellow’ – a thing which, considering I have only seen him twice, is rather cool. I don’t think he’s a very bright genius however he no doubt means well.
Teddy & I kept up a regular correspondence for some time but it has stopped somehow now. I wrote last & have not heard from him for a tremendous time.
You ask me if I want anything. It is strange while thanking you for one Box to ask for another, but I will this next interim draw out a list of things which as they will come round the Cape had better not be put off too long.
By the bye, Mr J a few days ago told me I was looking so unwell I had better ‘take a run somewhere, even if it was only to Macao’ (30 miles hence). I don’t believe I really am so bad as that, but it shows he takes an interest in me & I am in favour. He has never been known to propose such a thing before. He is a hard working man himself & he cannot bear any one wanting to leave work. So perhaps by next mail I may be able to describe Macao which, altho’ so near & equally European, is quite different to Hong Kong.
I am glad to hear little Helen is better but ere this she will be all right.
Always send any papers in which there is anything to interest me – for instance the Yeh affair & all your parliamentary speeches, as the chances are I never see them. I have not seen any of last mails papers yet.
Your affect. Son
Peter G. Laurie
* Morley’s – Morley’s Hotel, on the East side of Trafalgar Square until it was demolished in 1936
* Willie – William Lloyd (1831-1912), the fourth son of Edmund Lloyd (1795-1860) and Mary née Collett (1807-1865)