Epistolary Bores


The number of letters received by O'Connell upon trivial subjects was

sufficient to try his patience, as the following will show:--



A letter once arrived from New York, which, on opening, he found to

contain a minute description of a Queen Anne's farthing recently found

by the writer, with a modest request that Ireland's Liberator might

negotiate the sale of the said farthing in London; where, as many

int
lligent persons had assured him, he might make his fortune by it.



Another modest correspondent was one Peter Waldron, also of New York,

whose epistle ran thus:--Sir, I have discovered an old paper, by which

I find that my grandfather, Peter Waldron, left Dublin about the year

1730. You will very much oblige me by instituting an immediate inquiry

who the said Peter Waldron was; whether he possessed any property in

Dublin or elsewhere, and to what amount; and in case that he did, you

will confer a particular favor on me by taking immediate steps to

recover it, and if successful, forwarding the amount to me at New York.



At another time a Protestant clergyman wrote to apprise him that he and

his family were all in prayer for his conversion to the Protestant

religion; and that the writer was anxious to engage in controversy with

so distinguished an antagonist.



The letters with which he was persecuted, soliciting patronage, were

innumerable. Everybody writes to me about everything, said he, and

the applicants for places, without a single exception, tell me that one

word of mine will infallibly get them what they want. One word! Oh,

how sick I am of that 'One word!'



Some of his rural correspondents entertained odd ideas of his

attributes. He said that from one of them he got a letter commencing

with 'Awful Sir!'



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