Girard0195

16 September 1842 — Bishop Jean-Baptiste-François Pompallier to Father Jean-Claude Colin, Bay of Islands NZ

Translated by Fr Brian Quin SM, August 2015

The present document is the first of a dozen letters in which Pompallier asks Colin to pay for a borrowed amount of money. The second document of the series (doc 197) is almost identical to this one; more succinct are the following ones (docs 198, 199, 200, 203, 206, 207, 210, 211, 213, 216).

[Address]

Father Colin, Superior-General of the Marists, Lyons, France.

Bay of Islands, 16th September 1842

Reverend Father,

[1]

In a letter dated the 10th September 1841, I asked you to send me each trimester the allocations of the Propagation of the Faith for this mission so that in that way, in the possibility of an accident occurring in the banks or the ships bringing them to us, we might avoid losing them totally. I am still of the same opinion, along with the members of my council at the Bay of Islands.

[2]

As well, by sending our funds regularly in this way each trimester, you will always have in the cashbox of this mission in Lyons a certain sum of money available to face up to some extraordinary and urgent need of this same mission.

[3]

Right now here, the funds entrusted to Wright’s bank in London, and three-quarters of which were described to us as having been sent and having to be in our hands very soon, have not yet been totally paid; as well, we have not yet received anything of the 1841 allocations, and when this letter gets to you it will be the time when the 1842 allocations will be sent to you, or should be; now, as we are, right now, forced to pay high interest for the present draft fallen due, and enclosed within, I am drawing on you, or on the allocations for the mission, to pay off the principal borrowed, and the interest incurred.

[4]

So I am asking you to honour it for the good of this mission; this draft is made out in triplicate for the sum of one hundred and sixty-two pounds sterling – and to the name of Mr Ewen McLennan, a merchant in the Bay of Islands.

[5]

I have the honour to be, with respect and gratitude, Reverend Father,

[6]

NB The draft was in francs, amounting to four thousand five hundred and thirty six francs.

Your most humble and obedient servant

+ J B F Pompallier, Bishop and Vicar-Apostolic.