The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World

273 Pages·2014·25.45 MB·English

by  Lindsay O'Neill

The Opened Letter•
THEEARLYMODERNAMERICAS
PeterC.Mancall,SeriesEditor
Volumesintheseriesexploreneglectedaspectsof
earlymodernhistoryinthewesternhemisphere.
Interdisciplinaryincharacter,andwithaspecial
emphasisontheAtlanticWorldfrom1450to1850,
theseriesispublishedinpartnershipwiththe
USC-HuntingtonEarlyModernStudiesInstitute.
.................18575$ $$FM 05-07-1415:03:32 PS PAGEii
The Opened Letter•
Networking in the Early Modern British World
LINDSAY O’NEILL
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
Copyright(cid:2)2015UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedfor
purposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneofthisbook
maybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithout
writtenpermissionfromthepublisher.
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
O’Neill,Lindsay.
Theopenedletter:networkingintheearlymodernBritish
world/LindsayO’Neill.—1sted.
p. cm.—(EarlymodernAmericas)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-8122-4648-3(hardcover:alk.paper)
1.Letterwriting—Socialaspects—GreatBritain—
History—17thcentury.2.Letterwriting—Socialaspects—
GreatBritain—History—18thcentury.3.Englishletters—
GreatBritain—History—17thcentury.4.Englishletters—
GreatBritain—History—18thcentury.5.Socialnetworks—
GreatBritain—History—17thcentury.6.Socialnetworks—
GreatBritain—History—18thcentury.I.Title.II.Series:
EarlymodernAmericas.
BJ2101.O54 2015
302.2(cid:2)244—dc23 2014013141
Formyparents
This page intentionally left blank
(cid:2)
ontents
Introduction.SpeakingLetters 1
Chapter1.ThePerilsofthePostOffice 19
Chapter2.MappingtheEpistolaryWorld 47
Chapter3.NetworkingintheEpistolaryWorld 78
Chapter4.NurturingtheEpistolaryWorld 113
Chapter5.NewNetworksandLettersLessFamiliar 140
Chapter6.StirringNewsandtheRoleoftheLetter 169
Postscript 197
ListofAbbreviations 205
Notes 205
Index 255
Acknowledgments 263
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction. Speaking Letters
The letters Peter Collinson received spoke to him. For this London merchant
and ardent botanist, letters held more than inked words on a page. They
contained the voices of his friends and acquaintances, and when he cracked
openthesealofaletter,theyescapedandfilledtheroom.Ashewrotetohis
fellow botanist John Bartram in Pennsylvania in 1762, ‘‘I am here all alone
and yetI have theCompany of myFriends with Mee.This will beno para-
dox when I tell thee on the Table lays their Speaking Letters in that Silent
Language whichConveys their mostintimate thoughts to myMind.’’1 Sim-
ply by dipping his quill into his ink, Collinson joined a conversation. He
might address Bartram first, but his letter responded to and created other
conversations. He urged Bartram to go read the letter he had sent to Benja-
min Franklin about mysterious animal skeletons found near the Ohio River
and he passed on thanks to Bartram’s wife for her postscript. While he may
have not realized it at the time, Collinson was doing more than carrying on
an extended conversation with his friends and associates. He, and the scores
of letter writers like him, used their pens to maintain and extend the social
networksthatwereincreasinglytyingtogetherthewiderBritishworld.
The letters Collinson read and penned with such joy reveal how one
eagercorrespondentusedhisletterstomaintainrelationshipswithindividuals
across the wider British world. But he was only one man, and the meaning
ofhisepistolaryeffortsonlycomesintofocuswhenhislettersareconsidered
alongside those of his contemporaries, for Collinson was not the only one
wholistenedtoletters.Theyspoketomenandwomenacrosstheearlymod-
ern British world. By the eighteenth century, members of the elite from
England,Ireland,Scotland,andthecoloniesneededletterslikeneverbefore.
They used them to conduct business, plumb intellectual concerns, discuss
familymatters,rundistantestates,exchangenews,andaskforadvancement.
Changing social,economic, and geographic circumstancesmade face-to-face