Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

Miss Jenkins of Pantscallog in 1906-7 by the Cardiff Public Library, and which was then said to have belonged formerly to Miss Mary Watkins, the niece of David Williams (City of Cardiff Public Libraries, 45th Annual Report, 1906-7, pp. 21-6). It constitutes the main body of David Williams's MS. papers now extant, and is classified Cardiff Public Library MS. 1.152, 153; 2.191, 192; 3.160, 161; and 5.36. 'Morien', however, speaks of other MSS., notably 'letters in the French language sent to him from Paris at this period, proving that his views on political questions were much sought after by the leaders of the awful French Revolution'. One of these was from 'the then Mayor of Paris', and 'Morien' describes the red wax seal on it. 'Morien' does not state where these particular letters were, but later in the article he reproduces a letter from Voltaire to Williams, dated 3 April 1776, and states that 'it is kept most carefully in a box by Mr. Joseph Evans, the Bank, Caerphilly'. 'Morien' states that the letter, which was in English, was in Voltaire's own handwriting. (It is reproduced in the anonymous article on Williams in Public Characters, 1818, II, 24, and in French translation in A. Mathiez, La Theophilanthropie et le Culte Decadaire, Paris, 1903, p. 394.) Another letter in the same box was from David Garrick (dated 'Adelphi, 1773') to David Williams, acknowledging Williams's account of the death of the actor, Mossop, whose treat- ment by Garrick had been the subject of a violent attack on Garrick by Williams which had been published anonymously (vide D.N.B.). This letter, also, 'Morien' prints in full. (Williams's letter to Garrick, dated 7 January 1775, and Garrick's reply, dated 8 January 1775-not 1773-had already been printed in The Private Correspondence of David Garrick, II (1832), 37-8). Sir John Ballinger made a fruitless effort to trace the papers said by 'Morien' to be in the possession of Mr. Joseph Evans. It would appear, therefore, that although Mr. Evan Evans returned to its owner the MS. autobiography, as well as other MSS. which he had had copied and which are noted below, he retained other papers which passed to his two sons, Mr. Joseph Evans and the Reverend Walter Evans. At least some of those in the possession of Mr. Joseph Evans came to a niece who gave them to a Mr. Thomas, of Ty'n y Wern, Caerphilly. (Information supplied to me by Mr. E. Bromley Edmunds, as above.) Mr. Thomas's son was Dr. T. W. Thomas of Caerphilly, who also was interested in David Williams and who wrote an anonymous article on him, containing much otherwise unknown information, in Pebyll Seion, an account of nonconformity in the Caerphilly district edited by T. Tawelfryn Thomas and E. Bush and published in 1904. (The Cardiff Public Library copy of Pebyll Seion establishes Dr. Thomas's authorship, for the copy was presented to the Library with his compliments, and the table of contents has in MS. a note that the article on David Williams was by him.) The David Williams MSS. which had been in the possession of Dr. T. W. Thomas were presented by his family, per Miss Enid Thomas, to the National Library of Wales in 1934, and are numbered N.L.W. MSS. 10331-3 and 10336-8. The papers in the possession of the Reverend Walter Evans passed to his daughter, Mrs. Helen Povah. They were found among her effects by her cousin, the Reverend Prebendary S. H. Martin of Hereford, who very kindly forwarded