Letter from Mary Rush Manners, daughter, and grand-daughter of two Signers of the Declaration of Independence, sister of a Presidential hopeful – married to an impoverished British officer who fought the Americans in the War of 1812.

        “… it gave me the greatest pleasure to hear of your health and happiness, your account of the comfortable stones [anthracite coal?] now in use in Philadelphia … a striking contrast to the miseries we were enduring from cold at the time your letter arrived which found us seated almost in a good fire, and shivering from cold which it was not possible for coals placed in a large grate to defend us from. We have had one of the most sever winters ever experienced in England; I never in any country suffered so much indeed we have all suffered greatly from cold and rheumatism. Major Manners has been much shaken by it and his state makes me very uneasy but I trust in a merciful God who has saved him through much suffering that the return of milk weather will restore him to his unusual state.

     Since I last wrote you my dearest Mother I have had the happiness to see my dear Brother Richard and although it was but a transient glace his stay being but a few hours, yet it afforded me infinite pleasure, I was delighted to see him in such good health and spirits, and satisfied with the result of his exertions, his very short stay left on my mind the impression of an agreeable dream. I had scarcely time to realize the pleasure ere it was gone. I had a thousand things to say, and questions to ask which a time would not permit while he was with us. I hope and trust he will receive a very valuable reward for his toil and exertions. I was much pleased to hear the Canada [the vessel on which Richard Rush sailed back to the US] had arrived safely at New York. You must have greeted his return with much joy …

     … I pray God you may long continue to enjoy every blessing this world can bestow. I cannot describe to you … how greatly my heart yearns to see you and the other members of my beloved family once more but for such happiness I may not look. Our Heavenly Father has ordered it otherwise …

     I received a latter some time ago from Georgy Cuthbert … [daughter of her sister Anne Emily] … in which she positively assured me we may depend on a remittance early in the winter. The winter has nearly passed and there are weekly arrivals but nothing for us. They really trifle with our peace and credit as this is the third positive assurance of the remittance … always followed by a disappointment … My sister never writes to me … It is hard they cannot send us one hundred out of the three hundred and fifty due to us. We are to leave this place soon as we cannot find a dwelling in it within our means. The one we have hitherto occupied we are obliged to leave. I know not yet where we shall go but trust we may be able to find something …”

     Despite one of the most pristine American Revolutionary pedigrees possible – daughter of Dr. Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence; grand-daughter of Richard Stockton, another Signer of the Declaration; the sister of Richard Rush, presidential cabinet member and vice-presidential nominee – at the age of 25, Mary Rush had married Thomas Manners, a British Army Major with no independent means. She first went with him to Canada where she gave birth to a son. Her sister Anne was there, married to a politician of British Canada, albeit one of French descent. When the War of 1812 began, Major Manners’ Regiment fought (and defeated) the Americans in several engagements on the US-Canadian border. Mary’s father privately expressed the fear that Manners might be killed in action, leaving Mary and her son to become dependent on him, but her father died in the second year of the War, while the Major survived the military campaigns; he and his family then returned to England, where they lived, as their letters attests, in relative poverty until the Major’s death, four years later. Why Mary was dependent on receiving funds from her estranged sister’s daughter is unknown.

      Most interesting in Mary’s mention of seeing her brother Richard in England. He had already served as Madison’s Attorney General and Monroe’s Secretary of State and had run unsuccessfully for Vice President as John Quincy Adams’ running Mate. He had then been Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of the Treasury. When he left that office, he was commissioned by Virginia cities to negotiate a large loan in England. It was that trip that brought him a brief reunion with his sister. It would have been interesting to know if their conversation had turned to politics: When Rush returned to America, he was offered the presidential nomination by the Anti-Masonic Party, an honor he declined. His last public office was as American Ambassador to revolutionary France, sailing for England too late to see his sister Mary one last time. Widowed by her military husband, she died just before Rush’s arrival in England.