Letter to Alexander

Deare Brother,

No man, in the course of his mundane life, peacefully surrenders to the demands of Providence, the petty and unwavering agenda of time and nature that, disinterested in man’s accomplishment and repute, consigns his fate to end beneath the church. Instead, compell’d by his Heaven-endowed nature to challenge Her, man engages in bitter conflict with the cruel indifferent foe. And considering not any alternative, man enters into a sanguinary campaigne, and quickly assumes his station in the assault as ’twas bequeath’d to him by our Paradise-expulsed ancestors.

Inspired by that ancient struggle and Her recent demands of me, I too joined the ranks and charged the boldly unprotected neck to destroy the circumstances that designe our present situation. Yet Providence, that silent and beautiful giant, hath graciously deflected the blows of my attack and with Her sweet voice declar’d, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee….” Yet drunken with zealous and stubborn ire, my assault continued deep into the night, and still with every strike, was soften’d the sworde which I had so confidently brandished. At daybreak, my adversary again declared, “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing…” Then I fell, and at this moment of my vanquishment, a great and holy deluge washed over me, inundating my heart with the remembrances of thee, dear brother, and of mother, and of all those besieged soules whose freedome is owed to the mighty Christian valour shewn by thee and thy company, and to the relief provided by His Majesty’s shipps. I yielded then before the awful trajectory drawn in Her demands and, solemn defeated by Her resolute defense, I now respond to the Providential call, and acquiesce.

Thus in the Spring, I shall depart from our ports charged with all holy and industrial instruments requisite for new lyfe. I shall to new shores, and driv’n by the most fervent of curiosyties, seek these promises of Providence — she will lead me to the Promised Land and God willing, I will take in soil sopped not with blood and sacrifice, as ’tis within the walls of our beloved city. The voice of this blood crieth unto me from the ground, and I cannot avoide its echo; nowhere absorbed, nowhere dissolved into formless forget.

Verily I tell thee brother, reflection reveals that it was the hour the King’s shipps lifted the siege, when the one hundred and five days of anguish came to their exhausting conclusion, that I first heard the invitations of Providence. The pure and saccharine words by which I first learned the quality of Her voice: “thy name shall be called no more Irish, but American.”

Yours affectionately,
James Willson

Londonderry
December 3rd, 1689