Barnack Rectory
Stamford
June 19th 1832
Dear Talbot
absence from home last week, and a slight indispostition, brought on by fatigue, have prevented me from sooner thanking you for your kind letter.
I am very much gratified by your repeated wish for me to take charge of your Parish, and for your offer of the housing when it shall be next at your disposal – I do not think that further information than you have communicated, is necessary for my decision –
My young and numerous family demand from me that I should consider your offer with a view to pecuniary advantage in the main – and in that view the present curacy and antingent vicarage of Lacock presents no attractions.
I therefore cannot indulge my feelings, which could induce me to take so pleasant an abode –
Besides the negociation and intercourse with Mr Paley <1> could be attended with require so much delicacy, that I fear I must altogether decline your handsome and friendly offer. Mr Roberts seemed to understand that the curates’ stipend would be only 80£ a year, besides the Fees and House. That sum is far below what the Bishop must allow & if the Curate were (as every curate ought to be) licensed –
The description you gave, in a former letter, of Lacock Vicarage was such that Mr Bush did not think it would suit his wife’s health. He is now settled near Llanfair in Montgomeryshire –
I have naturally considered the offer made to me, and I have taken into account the smallness of the living, its distance form the county: the population of the parish: and the price I must pay by losing all chance of delapidation money: together with the uncertainty of two lives: and the necessity of my not reducing my income – all these things counterweigh the inclination I have to be near your county residence, and to shew at the same time, my sense of your kindness – but I have come to the decision, and now declare it to you, with much reluctance –
Believe me, Dear Talbot, very truly, and obliged yours
Charles Porter
Notes:
1. Rev James Paley (1790–1863), Vicar at Lacock.