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For Mary Blake, from her mother, Fanny Rawlins Blake, who swears an oath to God that the following account is true and complete. FRB, November 1804, written on the merchantman Marguerite.
George Rawlins and I arrived in London in March of 1781, and I became the bride of William Blake that same month. My new husband was a man of fifty three years when I met him, of pale complexion and humourless countenance. Born of the merchant class and educated to take his part within it, he commanded neither the inclination nor the talent to explore the world beyond the bounds of accountancy and trade. He could decipher a ledger, and had he been a man of lesser fortune, that would have been enough. However, his betrothal to me had been followed by an unexpected upturn in other business ventures, and I found him to be in a state of greater wealth than I, my brother, or indeed he himself, had anticipated. An ambitious man, he quickly saw the advantages of his new situation, for not only had he acquired a wife on good financial terms, he had acquired one in possession of education and taste. With these attributes in his control, he was assured of a promising future in English society. Having misjudged the nature of the scandal that compelled my brother to bargain me away, he took me to his marriage bed without a trace of the gentlemanly behaviour desired on such occasions. I thought him a brute, and did all in my power to evade his advances. This impression I held firmly until the day of his death, despite his attempts to see me comfortably situated. In anticipation of finding a suitable partner for life, he had commissioned the building of an estate in the Sussex countryside near the South Downs. His nature tending to the conservative, and his tastes tending toward the antiquated, he favoured a style in house and landscape already a generation or two out of fashion. The construction of the great house began before he settled on a wife, but the resolution of that problem, and the fortune that followed the decision, greatly expedited the completion of the building, and we were ready to take up residency there at the turn of the New Year, 1782. To celebrate his good fortune, he named the estate Stoney Grove, and, in an effort to please me, furnished a suite of rooms within it in a style reminiscent of the West Indies. To the grounds he added a hothouse, and promised me my fill of fragrant blossoms and exotic fruits. I rebuffed the proffered olive branch with bitterness, for how could this unhappy place compare with the home I had know with my dear brother and father? The Downs were but poor reminders to me of the grandeur of Nevis Peak, the grounds sparsely furnished and dead, the sun a pale, washed out sister to the brilliant orb that had been the constant companion of my youth. With the house itself, you are familiar. Though the skill of the architect and the fortune of my husband were united to secure tasteful appointments, the cavernous twilight of its interior afforded me little comfort. The rooms were draughty; the sun, when she showed her face, hidden behind leaden draperies. I kept to my rooms as often as possible, finding warmth by the fireside, and solace in books and in memories. You were born in February of 1782, just short of a year after I wed Mr. Blake. I could not name you for my mother, Aminta, nor my friend, Sawney, so I settled on Mary in honor of my tutor, Miss Stewart. Your father was disappointed that you were not a son, and had little interest in your progress. In spite of the unwelcoming climate to which you were born, you thrived as an infant, and were a great source of happiness to me.
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