"I will leave no stone unturn’d to find out who keeps them from me..."
Online shipment tracking has really spoiled us. Through the magic of the interwebs, we can order just about anything from just about anywhere and virtually follow its step-by-step journey from warehouse to our house. We get frustrated when items get rerouted or otherwise delayed for a day or two, but most packages show up at our front doors right on schedule. In those rare instances when a shipment inexplicably vanishes somewhere between point A and point Z, we can almost always work the system to get a replacement or refund. All of that is a huge improvement over how international shipping worked 250 years ago!
The July 25, 1771 issue of the Maryland Gazette includes an advertisement by Annapolis artist Charles Willson Peale. A correspondent in England had sent Peale “sundry Books, on Painting, and a Number of Prints,” but the items hadn’t been delivered. Unfortunately, Peale didn’t know the name of the ship which carried them, or where in Virginia or Maryland the unknown vessel had first landed and unloaded any packages bound for Annapolis. Peale promised an unspecified reward and his personal thanks to anyone who found and forwarded the missing books and prints to him.
The ad doesn’t mention the name of Peale’s contact in England, but fortunately the artist’s published papers reveal his identity: Maryland ex-pat Edmund Jenings, Jr.
In the late 1760s, Charles Willson Peale trained in London under the acclaimed American artist Benjamin West. Peale’s study-abroad program was financed by John Beale Bordley, who had been a student at Peale’s father’s school in Chestertown, and ten other Maryland gentlemen. Once in London, Peale found another loyal friend and patron in Edmund Jenings, Jr., who was Bordley’s half-brother. Jenings commissioned a number of works by Peale and introduced him to the sorts of people who could themselves become his patrons. Charles Willson Peale was always appreciative of the
early support he received from both John Beale Bordley in Maryland and Edmund Jenings, Jr. in London. In the group portrait he painted of his own family, Peale included a bust of Jenings gazing down benevolently on the gathering.
Volume 1 of The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family edited by Lillian B. Miller includes a July 18, 1771 letter by Peale to Jenings. Peale noted his recent receipt of a
“short Epistle…wherein you say you have wrote so fully of late that you have nothing to add, and ask if I have received some prints & Books, I have not received letters prints or Books or can I as yet hear of them altho I have made the strictest enquirey, if you can inform me by what Vesel you sent by I shall be extremely glad, and I will leave no stone unturn’d to find out who keeps them from me—it grieves me much that I should not get your letter or letters, those that have come to hand give me the greatest satisfaction I ever felt when you express your pleasure in being my Benefactor, I am glad that I was poor and in want of a friend, when you have so kindly supported me...”
The missing books, prints, and letters from Edmund Jenings clearly represented something more than an annoyingly mislaid package to Charles Willson Peale. They were tokens of friendship and continued encouragement from a generous benefactor to whom Peale partially owed the growing successes of his young artistic career.
If only he could have clicked on “track my shipment” to figure out where they were.
Read the July 25, 1771 issue of the Maryland Gazette starting here: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001281/html/m1281-1325.html
Glenn E. Campbell
HA Senior Historian
