Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

he might well have ventured to America as early as 1789. n0 William Owen Pughe, lolo Morganwg and Dafydd Samwell and other members of the Gwyneddigion Society left no stone unturned in their efforts to organize an expedition to discover the Madogwys in the upper reaches of the Missouri. Indeed, lolo Morganwg embarked on a fitness programme which would have tested the endurance of an SAS recruit, only to abandon his plans as domestic crises plagued him. It was left to the ill-fated John Evans, his ears still ringing with William Jones's earnest pleas at the Llanrwst eisteddfod, to embark on his celebrated but ultimately fruitless mission in search of the Lost Brothers.111 Undeterred by these setbacks, William Jones wrote to Sir William Pulteney, the fabulously wealthy MP for Shrewsbury and author of The Present State of Affairs with America (1778), pleading for assistance in his bid to provide an avenue of escape from 'Egyptian Taskmasters' in Wales. Pulteney's reply, which Jones read with derision and rage, was designed to persuade him that Britain was the most bounteous country in the world and that he could better serve his countrymen by urging them to be content with their lot.112 It is ironic that Pulteney, whose personal wealth approached two million pounds and who was regarded at the time as 'the greatest American stockholder ever known', should have used his best endeavours to dissuade improverished Welsh families from seeking wealth and liberty in the Land of the Free.113 Undaunted, Jones turned his attention to Thomas Pinckney, the American ambassador in London, urging him to lend support to his plan of establishing a joint-stock company which would discover, survey and purchase cheap and fruitful land in Kentucky and Pennsylvania where large numbers of Welsh settlers could establish a separate state whose affairs would be administered through the medium of the Welsh language.114 Rebuffed by Pinckney, it was some comfort to Jones that the notion of emigration had 'become almost epidemical' in the Bala area by May 1794, but he feared, too, that farmers and craftsmen were setting off at random, ill-prepared and ill- informed, and at great expense.115 Even as late as April 1795, 'Old D6, Hywel' (as Thomas Jones the exciseman fondly called him) was still 'piping ""N.L.W. MS. 13221E, f. 416. "'David Williams, John Evans and the Legend of Madoc (Cardiff, 1963); G. A. Williams, 'John Evans's mission to the Madogwys, 1792-99', Bull. Board of Celtic Studies, 27 (1978), 569-601. 112N.L.W. MS. 13221E, f. 267; 1806E, f. 782. IIJR. G. Thorne (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1790-1820, vol. 4 (London, 1986), pp. 902-4. "4N.L.W. MS. 13221E, ff. 301-2, 415; 13222C, f. 287. N.L.W. MS. 13221E, f. 303.