The Letters of Nicholas Loney (21)

Letter No. 21

Iloilo

October 23^rd, 1865

Per steamer “Iloilo”

To Manila

My dear Father,

It is some little time since I wrote you last, and I now avail myself of the departure of this constant old steamer to own receipt of your last letter of August, to Robert and myself. It also enclosed one for Leontine, which she has received with satisfaction.

The young Enery (Henry) is going on satisfactorily, and spends his time mostly in sleeping, imbibing, and laughing. Fault is found with him, however, in that he lets the world go on too easily, and doesn’t cry or make a respectable enough row as a well –regulated-minded baby ought. But I am giving far too much prominence I fear to this young person, introducing him “au premier plan.” Let us therefore drop him, figuratively, I mean, for to do so positively would bring down the maternal ire on us.

Things here are proceeding in the usual kind of way. Sugar is being shipped and contracted for; piece goods are being sold, Chinamen dunned into paying up, letters of encouragement, congratulations or condolence written to constituents according as they require spiriting up, or as the results of their consignments call for felicitation or judicious regret.

Our minds are somewhat exercised by the purchase of the concretor by Higgin, which, being an experiment, is a somewhat serious one for us, who are by no means flush of disposable capital for more pressing things. But it may be a success, and we are so used to all manner of risks and perils of this kind that it doesn’t affect our appetite or cause any perceptible diminution in the constant consumption of curry and rice which is supposed to be always going on where tropicalities abound – though in reality I never see it at Tabucan, as our artist there is not equal to it. Robert, it is true, has a faint simulacrum of curry at his 12 o’clock breakfast, but it is not the curry of Lucknow or of Oude. The concretor is coming on the “Eliza,” but as we have not yet got the erecting drawings, we are not sure if it will be possible to have it up for this next season, which would be a drawback as it has to be paid for in a year from date of purchase.

I suppose Mr. Higgin will have been down to see you at Plymouth during this present month, and presume he would like the place and neighbourhood. Now that Ker & Co. are leaving Cebu, there should be more room for Loney, K and Co. on the import line. I suppose you hear all about Cebu doings from Frank, who seems to be a capital correspondent. Our firms come to an end as a partnership at the end of this year, but the idea is to prorogue the present arrangement till the end of next year. When that time is up I don’t know what we shall do exactly. I myself am extremely desirous to leave this place, where I have now been too long, and where one’s life is simply, you might almost say, a blank in many things, after having had so much of it. (Provincial Philippine existence)

I therefore think I must leave at the expiry of next year. By that time we should be quite out of debt, and our property in land and houses is now considerable, there should be enough to divide to allow one to turn towards Europe. But in any case my mind is pretty well made up to leave at the time mentioned, even if pecuniaries should be scant. On this you may be able to give me your advice. Robert will, I think, by that time secure enough to make up his original capital and more (and I think he rather inclines to join Mr. Costeker in something) either here or by living at home, but I do not say this definitely as the time being yet distant and events uncertain it is not much use speculating on these matters. He and Costeker apparently have great faith in the future of Matabang, and occupy and enjoy themselves in planning out schemes for its future prosperity which I think have a fair chance of realization. Though he does not care to allow it, I think Robert has pretty well got over his original dislike of the country and its ways, though he still objects to all manner of Spaniards, (and they – internos – return the compliment). In health I don’t think I ever saw him look better, though of course some effect has been produced by years in this warm climate; and he doesn’t seem impatient to get away. The drawback he feels about going is that his interests might suffer in his absence. Costeker being away at Negros, Higgin from his slightly eccentric style is not exactly the man to leave in charge of matters and things without someone with him. In this point of view it is regrettable that Ross did not join us, as was at one time probable when he thought of leaving Ker & Co. as we should have left our interests in his hands without any misgivings.

But at the end of 1869 I do not think I need allow money considerations to detain me here; as, rather than not leave, I would try to get a decent vice-consulate in Spain. For with this, and what might accrue from L & Co. I could along very well. I do not want to go into business again in England if I can help it – and to leave off work in toto (entirely) is of course a great mistake. From what I saw at Manila while acting Consul there, I think that if I again got well into that groove in a place of some little importance I think I could do some good, and advance perhaps after a time to a fair position, though after a man has been 26 years in the tropics his powers of work do not last far on in life. Anyhow my chief wish now is to leave this place, without sacrificing more than another year to it. Leontine is also very desirous to get away…

Mr. Ricketts writes me that he has got into a paper war with the Government in Manila, that the Captain General (who is said to be very ill) has written him an objectionable letter, and will only consider him on the footing of a “Commercial Agent.” He has refereed his position to Lord Stanley to be more clearly defined. Though an estimable, gentlemanly person, his dislike of Spaniards is so great that they have discerned and resented it, never calling on him or exchanging the usual social amenities of that kind.

In answering one of Mr. Brackenbury’s letters the other day (from Lisbon), I asked him what chance there would be of a Spanish vice-consulate, as he is well up in knowledge of that sort of thing. To tell you the truth, I don’t think there would be much chance, but it is well top keep it in view as a dernier (last) resort, and I by no means dislike the idea – though of course a residence in England would be more desirable for many reasons. However, these are mere speculations as to the future and to be taken as such.

Roberta Maria Josephina continues to be the wonder of the age – at her age- from the maternal point of view. I brought her home this morning a very long sugar cane from a field where they are cutting cane near the house, and there was great cutting and masticating thereupon.

With love from Leontine and self to all, including Aunt Kitty, believe me

Your affectionate son,

N. LONEY

The Letters of Nicholas Loney (20)

Letter No. 20

Iloilo

February 12, 1860

“Rosalia” to Manila

and overland via China

and Southampton

My dear Nanny,

As I have the only faintest idea of when I last wrote you, it would be as well on this occasion to sink all reference to such absurd things as dates – if, however, you will have allusion to those weal inventions, I may mention that somewhere about June last year was the time when I think you were last epistolarised from this quarter of the world. What to say in defense of the immense hiatus in correspondence? Nothing – inevitable force of circumstances – and chiefly in fact (paradoxical as it might seem to the undiscerning mind) the very wish of writing you a long, and only a long letter at times of departure of mails, when the writing of long letters in addition to those perennial business ones which are the bane of one’s existence, was not to be thought of.

I will not class “the likes of you” among undiscerning minds, and will therefore assume at once that you will see by the light of intuition how completely impossible it is that I should, would, or might have written since June, or whenever it was, last year. Having triumphantly disposed of that little business, I take a fresh dip, and proceed.

The last letter from you that I discover among my chaotic private papers is dated August 17^th. I think it is the last although not quite sure – no disposable time at present to institute a rigorous search – but anyhow I was, and am, very much indebted to you for it. All that you so kindly say was, you may be sure, thoroughly appreciated and understood. Je ne dirais pas plus sur cela, parceque comme J’ai dit autrefois, mes lettres ne sont pas vue par vous seul, et pour des raisons que vous pouvez comprendre – il y a des choses que on n’aime pas a dire a toute le monde[i] – not that I mean “tout le monde” to be taken literally, or even approximately – but you perceive what I do mean.

You will notice from my rambling letter to Father that pecuniary matter in re my debtor friend are turning out unfavourable, as to avoid comprising his agent at Antique, I shall hand over to the latter a quantity of goods and money obtained (legally as far as I was concerned) from him – to be added to the general fund or assets for the benefit of the other creditors – in which I may also share, but from which little will be got, after a lapse of goodness knows how long. Still all this is nothing at all provided I find a sufficient sum to my credit towards the end of the year to enable me to go home, with a fair margin to spare, and not too many outstanding accounts pending – and that this will be the case I have full reason to believe – particularly if a tolerable saccharine business to be done in this year of grace one thousand eight hundred sixty – as to which by the bye, I have not had the opportunity of wishing you “a happy new year.” As for the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, I think he is about the most disagreeable individual of his fraternity that I have yet made acquaintance with. On many accounts he has been to me a most objectionable old party, but I daresay that a time may come when I may see him under another aspect, and be inclined on the whole to condone his apparent absurdities.

So much for Buckingham from the hopes and fears and money and tonnage point of view. Now let us look back at him in a less disagreeable and shoppy kind of light. Let us contemplate him at his ancient practice of cutting about on unknown coasts in queer little caravels. You have been having your excursion to Warwickshire, and I mine to the Isle of Negros.

On the 31^st of December 1859, Francisco del Castillo, Felipe G. Diez and I embarked in a panca for a trip of a few days to the Isle of Negros including a cruise round the island of Guimaras. After a night of wind and rain, which we spent on deck, we found ourselves opposite Bacolod, the chief town of Negros. Disembarked in a gloomy shower of rain, got duly wet, and went to the Governor’s – Dr. Pedro Beaumont, a loud-voiced peremptory man, with a face which reminded me of Haydon’s idea of a countenance like a “vulgar eagle.” He was engaged in ordering the gobernadorcillo and teniente mayor under arrest for deficient supply of grass to his horses. Received us very politely, between the intervals of storming at those unhappy functionaries – sundry Spaniards about the sala, and other residents of Bacolod. Talked about things in general. Spiced sausage, biscuits and wine. Sallied forth to visit Lieutenant Governor Don Pedro Campo and other fellows. Returned at three to Governor’s to dinner, which was a good one, and host very amiable. Don Jose de Alvarez y Sotomayor a tall, thin, good-looking blue-eyed, small-headed Spaniard with the mark of climate stamped on him, was great on sugar crops and sugar, cane crushing labour, etc. – he having converted a large estate at Ginigaran; Felipe Diez and Beaumont reminisced of Madrid and “people they had met.” After dinner went to the stables and looked at the horses, and talked that most dreary of all talks – a talk about horses – wonderful qualities and prices of animals you have never seen and don’t want to see. As I walked down to the beach some Indians carried us through the water to the baroto and pulled off to the panca – with us came Don Hugo Koch, a Prussian ex-naturalist settled at Valladolid and married to a mestizo daughter of a sugar planter. Started for Pulo Pandan on the southern coast of Negros.

Night very stormy, with thunder, lightnings, and a heavy rain and sea. Water very phosphorescent – shoals in the immediate neighbourhood. Master of panca not sure of his course or whereabouts, main-boom smashed in two, and things in general, ominous. Getting out of the neighbourhood of the shoals, we had, however, some supper and managed to get to the anchorage of Pulo Pandan before morning. Found loading there the brigantine “San Nicholas” and surprised my old friend of the “Sumbilla,” Captain Don Santiago de Sierra, by shouting to him to come on board. Walked along sandy beach to Valladolid, and arrived in a hot state at Don Hugo’s house – refection – afterwards to breakfast at the convent with Padre Julian – poor Father Julian putting on his black Recoleto robes to go and bury someone. At two, with a terrific sun, started on horseback for the estate of Don Hugo’s father-in-law, Don Agustin Montilla. Rode along a very indifferent road by swampy paddy fields with the grain laid nearly flat by the rains, and where Ceres, in the shape of brown Bisayan women with kirtle looped above the knee, was cutting off the ears of rice in all directions. The Prussian gave me his horse and, mounted on a sorry animal which had come that day all the way from Bacolod, went shouting and whooping along the way, wielding a bamboo – a good rider though a rough one. There were some little pink flowers on the edges of the road – something between a vetch and a clover – which took my fancy considerably.

Bye and bye we came to long cane fields, the commencement of Montilla’s estate, and in the distance a long line of luxuriant bamboos marked the course of the river Bago. Reached Montilla’s house about four, when Don Agustin (a Philippine Spaniard) did the honours with planterian hospitality. His wife and daughter being unaccustomed to see much of Europeans, did not show up, but when going round the grounds we caught glimpses of the latter peeping out of windows in the vicinity of the kitchen. They seemed to be good-looking – but as for loveliness, the river of Bago is equal to Abana and Pharphar and all the rivers of Damascus – such a gleaming flow of deliciously clear water between banks of feathery bamboo, areca palms, creepers, camanchiles and other manner of tropical greenery! Stunning, sir – stunning, is about the only word that can convey to you a remote notion of that blessed Bago river which henceforth forms an inalienable part of my mental consciousness.

Montilla took us to the cane-crushing department where Diez and I worked at the mills while the others put through a few canes. One of the mills is an iron one. Then we made an attack on the cane field, breaking off joints of the tallest canes, and wending our way munching, back to the house, passing with considerable difficulty a large deposit of water where a series of frail logs propped on stakes were the only means of locomotion, but where a number of water lilies and strange overgrowth of singular plants made the water and banks a miracle of almost painful beauty. (I mean painful in the sense of a passage I have lately met with in the “Revue de Deux Mondes” in a paper entitled “Pages d’un Reveur Inconnu” – Pages of an Unknown Dreamer) being fragments strung together from the papers of M. Alfred Tonnelle, a young Frenchman who died of fever among the Catalonian mountains, after having been to England and most of the Continent.

But if I go on this way I shall use up the miserable scrap of paper yet left without getting to the end of the day’s doings. Suffice it to say that we got back and rode to Valladolid, and after a weary walk to Pulo Pandan slept on board the “San Nicholas” – how we sailed in the panca the next day for Ginigaran – how the Padre of Ginigaran, an Aragones named Friar Jose Martinez, was a first-rate fellow who accompanied us up an immense salt-water creek to the hacienda of Sotomayor – how we inspected the iron mills from Ker & Co. and the boiling apparatus and oven – how we returned in the evening in a big prau down the desolate mangrove-fringed river - how the Padre gave us a most wonderfully good supper – how we got back to Pulo Pandan next day – and on the following morning started for Iloilo – how a gale of wind split our sails and drove us into a most delightful harbour of Guimaras – how we ascended a mountain, and the glory of the scene we saw from thence – how we bathed in an alligator creek – how we had a fright during the night from two praus full of people emigrating from Antique to Negros, whom we took for pirates from their pulling furiously in our direction – how we started the next morning for the Iloilo coast and reached Miagao with a staggering breeze of wind and came overland by way of Guimbal, Tigbauan, Oton, Arevalo and Molo to Iloilo – how can these things be worthily recounted on a wretched bit of papyrus like this?

The brigantine “Moleño” arrived this afternoon with mail from Manila, and among my letters is one from Father of December 2^nd by which I notice that you were still in Warwickshire and intended leaving in a few days for Southampton – Don Roberto was at home I perceive. I epistolarize him by the next craft to Manila.

But all this time I have said nothing about your likeness, the receipt of which I hurriedly acknowledged to you on Sept. 29^th. It seems to be a good one, although thirteen years have, of course, produced some difference from the original as recollected by me in May 1847, and photographs never do give a perfect likeness – the mouth, as in most sun-portraits is somewhat exaggerated, the upper part of the face is excellent. I have much pleasure in receiving this portrait and must again thank you for it. The lines you enclosed were very appropriate – but the fag end of a frantic note written at this moment with sugar matters distracting one’s attention, justice cannot be done to this high argument of a “Lady’s portrait 1859,” and further notice must be reserved for a subsequent number. Now look here, you just write an article for the Cornhill magazine and send it to Mr. Makepiece Thackeray. You can do it and it must be done.

Ask Robert what he thinks of you and he and some of the girls and I taking a small run across the Channel to France for a day or two in the spring time next year? With love to Mother, Harriet, Sophie, Aunt Kitty, Mary and Lizzie (when you write them) believe me always

Your very affectionate brother,

NICHOLAS LONEY

P.S. I see Harriet and Aunt Kitty had been to hear J.B. lecture on China. I am executing a commission for a friend of J.B’s – an ethnological professor named Dr. J. Barnard Davis for no less an article than Philippine skulls – have got three from a church yard from a friendly priest.

---

[i] “I will not say more on that, because as I’ve said formerly, my letters are not seen by you alone, and for reasons which you will understand, there are things which one does not like to say to everybody.”

The Letters of Nicholas Loney (19)

Letter No. 19

Iloilo

June 9^th, 1859

“Reina de Castilla”

pp. H.C.M. Stmr.

My dear Robert,

Finding from your letter of April 6^th (which, together with that of March 27^th, I received a short time ago) that you may be detained for some months yet in India, I enclose press copy of my last of May 21^st, which was sent to Plymouth. From it you will observe how my pecuniary difficulties stood. The horizon (as penny-a-liners say) is now brightening. I have managed to but a further lot of goods from my debtor’s agent at Antique to the extent of $3,300; all, however, of exceedingly slow and difficult sale. My eventual loss will not I think be over $1,500, and this, were it not for having so much capital locked up in unsaleable goods, I should not much care for.

Under these circumstances, and while things remain in such an indifferent state, I could not recommend you conscienciously to “join the Union” with your L3,000, as it would be put in at a time when the concern is getting on lamely from the effects of the late blow, and it would not be doing justice to your capital to put a great part of it in to fill up the gap caused by Eyzaquine’s debt. Furthermore, I doubt very much if you could reconcile yourself to living in this place for more than a few months. You would have no one to talk to but ourselves, and your non-knowledge of the Iberian tongue would prevent your taking an active part in the business except perhaps in the way of going to Manila and the provinces in a vessel purchasing produce on spec.

My idea is that a better thing would be for you to go to New Zealand with a small vessel of 200 tons, taking what freight offered. If a better freight offered for Melbourne or Geelong (Ceylon), then go to either of these places. Suppose you go to Melbourne, then put yourself in communication with the Victoria Sugar Company, which if necessary would, I make little doubt, charter you for Iloilo or, at all events, Manila – or if not, other firms there who would be written to about it, might probably do so. If you went to New Zealand you would place yourself in communication with Stuart Kinross & Co. of Wellington. I have written to them explaining the advantages of getting sugar at Iloilo instead of Manila, and from what I know about them, I think they will be very much inclined to go into the trade. It appears that there is a good demand for unclayed sugar in New Zealand, but hitherto it has been imported from Melbourne and not from the Philippines direct. You could see Mr. Stuart and arrange the matter with him. If you went to Melbourne first, you might write to Stuart Kinross & Co. though a personal interview would be better – steamers run between Melbourne and New Zealand every week. I think that if you had funds enough to keep a small vessel going between this place and New Zealand, buying the cargo on your own account you would do well, as the sugar is to be had cheap here.

I think a good trade in sugar might be scared up between this region and New Zealand, and if the thing were found to answer, I would go there myself and set up as a sugar trader. After making a few paying voyages you could also remain at New Zealand in connection with Iloilo, and work ahead generally, provided your capital were somewhat increased and allowed you to do a fair business in sugar and other New Zealand trade.

N.Z. is also a first-rate country for farming and between the two we should be able to find employment for one of your Southampton nephews. If you came to Manila or China from England you would come on here, and go to Australia and New Zealand as above. The voyage between N.Z. and Iloilo should occupy from 30 to 35 days only.

If you into the Navy for about a year, to serve for the additional half-pay – and perhaps this will be your safest course – I should, by the time you were free again, be at home, and we might go out to New Zealand and Australia together if I thought nothing very good could be done by remaining at Liverpool. I don’t know what you will think of this programme, and it depends on what you do think – you ask if a small vessel would do any good on the China coast. I daresay she would find freight, but not I believe at very paying rates. There are a great number of small Hamburg and Danish vessels besides English craft engaged in that line.

The cost of the steamer “Fernando de Norzagaray” formerly intended to ply between here and Manila was $48,000 ready for sea at Boston. She was not delivered to the parties who ordered her owing to a difficulty about funds, and has since been sold to the French for use in the Cochin China war.

A steamer between here and Manila would pay, but you have not capital enough to do it with. I have little doubt there will be a great deal of steam employed in future on the Yangtze Kiang (Yellow River) though the time has not exactly come, and you have not money enough to have a boat there I should think. The “Fernando de Norzagaray” was sent there for sale the other day, but found no purchaser. If you liked you might make a voyage with sugar from hence to Shanghai, with sugar on freight.

Should you think of going into a small vessel shortly and coming here via Australia and New Zealand, or China and Manila, you should time yourself as to arrive here from January to June or July next year. During that time sugar is to be had. The strength of the sugar season is in April. I think that next season we shall do a very fair produce business, as the attention of the merchants is now attracted towards Iloilo, and the crop is to be comparatively large.

I will send some seed to your friend Mr. Kleinknecht or Littleknight as requested, and hope he will succeed in growing no end of hemp, tobacco, and pineapples from it. I doubt, however, if pineapple seed can easily be got – it is propagated by cuttings. I have just been taking a sight at the books, and find that including commissions on the “Pet” and “Camilla” cargoes (only 3 ½%) our commission this year will be about $5,000, that is for one year from last June. Not so bad considering. If I find that the loss and delay in getting funds produced by Eyzaquines debt cripples me too much in making remittances, I shall try to borrow about $5,000 at interest of say 7% p.a. Well, I don’t know that I have much more to say to at this present time, nor will circumstances permit thereof. Isee you are now 41, ten years ahead of me, but you have more in you than I have – not being used up by 15 or 16 years of the tropics. As before said, I am open for a pedestrian tour, any day round England or Europe in general, and will put you on your mettle. I daresay Father would distance us both. I hope you will find Mother in fair health when you get home.

Affectionately yours,

NICHOLAS LONEY

P.S. If you come here, you can see if you would like to stop and join the Union.

The Letters of Nicholas Loney (18)

Letter No. 18

Iloilo

21 May 1859

“San Vicente” to Manila

My dear Robert,

I wrote you last to Bombay and to Hongkong (thinking you might have gone there) and reuesting you to call on Sir J. Bowring and his son J.C. Bowring in Jardine & Co., to whom I wrote asking him to do what he could for the ship. I have since received tour letters of July 14 and March 17, by the latter of which I learn that the ship is finished up. The only regrettable thing about this is the trouble and annoyance it must have caused you. From first to last on the India voyage you must have had an unpleasant, wearisome time with her, especially when knocking about the coast without getting a satisfactory freight. You say you would be home in May, and I presume this letter will still find you there.

You will have learned from Father that I have at last managed to set the direct trade to Australia in motion, having loaded the brig “Pet” and the barque “Camilla” with sugar for Melbourne.[i] It is possible that another moderate-sized vessel will be sent this year, as I have 4,000 piculs of sugar in store, and could buy a lot more on receipt of orders.

In other respects I have not been so fortunate. While I was in Manila, Higgin gave credit to a Spanish trader here, named Don Luis Eyzaquine (who had just commenced business on a rather extensive scale and was supposed to be furnished with a fair amount of capital) to the extent altogether of about $8,700 – most of this he promised to pay on arrival at Manila, whether he went to make some business arrangements, but his speculations having turned out unfortunate, he has not been able to pay anything. I have secured myself in part here by taking over goods from his agent to the extent of about $4,000, but they are unfortunately very unsaleable here (wine, spirits, preserved meats, etc.) and will take about two years to realize. He has a lot of goods (mostly bought from us) in the next province of Antique, and I hope to get hold of them, or part. If not, I stand to lose $3,000, and meanwhile have $8,700 shut up and not available, which seriously affects my remittances to constituents for goods sold. And I don’t suppose they will consign any more goods until things get straight, as I have written explaining how matters stand. I had made about $3,000 in commissions since arrival here, and counted on this sum to go home with, but apparently it will disappear. This is rather annoying, after so much hard work; but it is no good “crying after spilt milk” as a general rule. The money I shall not care for, but shall be sorry if the loss is sufficient to prevent my going home next year, which probably may be.

Your L100 is all right at Ker & Co. I think I had better send it home with the interest. As Eyzaquine was apparently in a very good position here, I should have given credit to him myself had I been here, so I cannot blame Higgin in the matter. Eyzaquine also got an advance of $4,000 from Russell and Sturgis, in Manila on the strength of his connection with me, and my having consigned some of his sugar and hemp shipments to them – I fear they will not see the money again. However, things may turn out much better than they at present look, and I will let you know how they get on. I think it may be put down as a pretty logical certainty that none of the Loney family are destined to make money in the present generation – though of course you will not allude the above to Mother, as you say any little excitement hurts her, and she might suppose matters to be worse that they are. But for this contretemps, the business was getting on swimmingly enough, and I still think that a good thing can be made of it. The sugar crop is increasing very much. I gave high prices for the “Pet” cargo, and this had led planters and other to see how much they benefit by the direct trade, and coupled with the general high prices for sugars, it has induced a great extension of planting. The crop next year will be ten times larger than when I first came here, and I think the future of the direct trade is now secured especially if the Sugar Company at Melbourne authorize Russell & Sturgis to keep the Iloilo pot boiling, which I think they would, as the cargoes of “Pet” and “Camilla” cost much less than if shipped to Manila. When I get home, I think a fair number of consigners could be recruited up, even without advances, but if not, should the present difficulties be tided over all right (and I fully believe they will be) there will always be lots of consignments from Manila after remittances are squared up O.K. It will be safe enough to leave Higgin in charge of the business. He is rather over sanguine, but is now cured of that and able to carry on in my absence.

We have written to a young man named Richard Crosby, who speaks Spanish, and is at present with Bulleras and Co., Liverpool, and I believe he will come out, though he has not answered definitely. I do not know what your intentions are as to future proceedings, but presume that in the first place you will serve your time in the navy for the additional half pay, and by that time if you like, we can see about setting up a house in Liverpool in connection with Iloilo. If matters do not go properly in that way, what do you say to buying a small estate in upper India in the temperate region, and cultivating it – say cotton near a railway – if not, as far as regards myself, I think I could get a tolerable situation in Spain; that is, supposing Iloilo to be left alone. The “Camilla” was sent to Manila to take a cargo for New Zealand, but the limit given could not be acted upon. It appears that there is a good demand for unclayed sugar at New Zealand, and if you take another vessel of about 300 tons, and could obtain capital enough to keep her going with cargoes of sugar, a good thing could be made of it between New Zealand and Iloilo. I enclose a few instructions about entering the port, which I got for Captain to write out. They are not very explicit, but useful enough. They are copied out by the young American W. Loring who is with us. He is not as you see very brilliant with his pen. He is employed weighing sugar and is a well-disposed young fellow, whose education has, however, been much neglected. He will probably go into L & S’s house after learning something here. My health continues to hold out very tolerably. I never have any positive illness, but generally feel very weak and languid – a year of cold weather would set me up all right, but it is now time I should have it, and I shall be much disappointed if I cannot get away next year. I expect to hear from you from England in a couple of months as to what you are going to do next. Perhaps something matrimonial may enter into your plans.

William Greenshields has been stirring himself at Liverpool in re Iloilo, and sent me an excellent order for hemp and sugar; a want of funds on the spot, (bills in England cannot be sold here) and the uncertainty of rates of freight – which have lately been on the rise – prevented its execution. I think there is an opening at Liverpool for a house connected with Manila and Iloilo, combining a booking business for Spanish ships; but it is so long since I have been in England and there is so much competition there, that I don’t profess to be very clear on this hear; if you knew Spanish, I should recommend you to come here at once, but as you don’t, and at your age never will, you could never stand living here, or make yourself sufficiently understood to carry on a business satisfactorily. This place is going ahead pretty rapidly. In five years hence, if the direct export continues, it will have changed very much. I have lately been sending old Sir J. Bowring a few notes about it. He is writing a book and has been coming his usual soft-sawder dodge, saying in one of his letters: “You gave me many useful materials, and without compliment I may say that I found no one more able or willing that you to assist me in my researches;” and again, with regard to his visit here, he writes: “I cannot leave these regions without conveying to you my most cordial thanks for those attentions which made our visit to Iloilo singularly agreeable. Its recollections will live long in my thoughts. Again I beg to assure you that I shall feel particular pleasure in being useful to the locality and to yourself.” I have no time to write Father and Nanny by present mail, please tell them I have their March letters and will reply soon, and meantime thank them muchisimo (very much) – I don’t know that I have any more to say at present that would interest you, and have letters to write to Manila. So, hoping to her splendiferous accounts from you next time, I remain, dear Robert

Your affectionate brother,

NICK LONEY

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[i] The following yearly shipments were made to foreign countries:

Year Tonnage Destination

1859 584 Australia

1860 2,511 Australia

1861 2,766 Australia

1862 6,404 Australia

1863 3,419 Australia

1863 6,670 China

1863 580 Great Britain