Letter – Benjamin Johnson to Thomas Wentworth Beaumont – 18 Jul 1828

Mr B.		July 18th 1828

I am happy to know that you are arrived in London ... the China and Glass will be packed tomorrow and sent by the steam Packet which leaves NCastle on Tuesday next, and will arrive at Blackwell on Thursday.  I enclose you Mr Harbottles letter in answer to my application to him to reduce his arrears.  I must confess I was never more astonished at any production.  He has had £150 allowed on .account of damage ... with this I also send you one or two more names who are deeply in arrears and by the favour to know, if, I am to give them notice to quit next Monday ... not having heard from you since I wrote in April last I am at a loss how to proceed with the house and outbuildings at Bywell, and all at present is at a stand.



	Anick Grange		14th July 1828

The damage I sustained by the floods upon my Crop, entirely puts it out of my power to reduce the arrears I now stand under to Mr Beaumont, it is not to the crops alone the damage is done but to the farm also, which has obliged me in the last six years to expand upwards of Five Hundred Pounds in purchasing manure which but for the reduction in the quantity of Straw and the consequent reduction in Corn I ought to have produced upon the farm. It is some consolotion that the arrears have not arisen either from neglect nor mismanagement, but from the effects of an Element over which I have no control and which will eventually render the farm of little value unless prevented by an Embankment.