Welsh Journals

he argues, was of relevance to the disaffected Welsh intelligentsia because of the Madoc myth and the American Revolution. As well as the mythical and ideological relevance of America, he also recognises that both religious and economic influences were important in the emigration movements of the revolutionary decade. He connects the 'spiritual geography' of Welsh nonconformity with areas of 'disaffection', suggesting that this correlation explains the geography of emigration.5 As a result, emigration was not only a 'central feature of the social crisis in rural Wales',6 but also 'peculiarly Dissenter in spirit, leadership and substantially in personnel'. 7 There has been a tendency to regard emigation, whatever the circumstances or the motivation, as a justifiable activity. This was not necessarily the contemporary interpretation. Emigration from Wales to the United States during the 1790s could be justified on positive moral grounds as the legitimate action of the Christian to avoid persecution, as an escape from divine judgement on a wicked and corrupt nation, a quest to improve individual and family prospects in a land where opportunities for social and economic advancement were perceived to be greater. However, another contemporary assessment drew different conclusions. Emigration was the desertion of the morally inadequate, the flight of those who would be 'deceitful everywhere', an adventure for wordly advancement motivated by greed. On 4 November 1796, Joshua Thomas, the historian of the Welsh Baptists, ministering to an English congregation at Leominster, commented on the character of the emigrants in a letter to Samuel Jones, the Welsh-born Baptist minister at Pennepek, near Philadelphia.8 Thomas referred to the 'industrious and respectable' emigrant whose prospects for advancement had been ruined by heavy taxes: 'many of these will live and be respected almost in any country'. Yet, even some of the industrious and respectable harboured unrealistic expectations of America, 'as if the country beyond the Atlantic is a kind of heaven compared with this'. Some of the emigrants were people of lesser moral stature, but 'in emigration reform in their morals, and turn out honourable'. Others were far better behaved abroad than at home. Unfortunately, 'there are others who are deceitful everywhere'. In general, however, 'most of the emigrants are persons who cannot live comfortable in this country. Yet there are very different springs of uneasiness.' These Gwyn A. Williams, Search for Beulah Land (London, 1980), p. 132. Ibid., p. 22. Gwyn A. Williams, 'Druids and Democrats: Organic Intellectuals and the First Welsh Nation', in The welsh in their History (1982), p. 47. Joshua Thomas to Samuel Jones, 4 November 1796: Mrs. Irving H. McKesson Collection (Jones eChon), Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.