To John Tyndall, Snr   Wednesday night

Wednesday night¹

My dear Father

Well, the thunderer² has at length flashed and I have been seared, not shivered by the bolt. I am dismissed – dismissed forever from the legion of Ordnance Surveyors³ – Thank heaven however I leave it with a character unstained. I suffer in a righteous cause, and suffer in common with some of the best and oldest hands in the employment. I gave you a hint before that some danger was impending. I had no notion however that vengeance was so near. I did not anticipate so sudden a blow, coming as it did without previous signal. It might be thought sufficient to unman me this however is not the case. My convictions would prompt me to a reacting of the scenes which led to my dismissal, even if I were aware of the consequences. My last letter⁴ to Mr Conwill goes more into the detail of our proceedings than any I wrote to you. This however is but a sketch. I shall shortly lay before you a full account of the business which caused our Superintendent⁵ to take this step. At 10 o’clock this day we heard the order⁶ for the dismissal of nineteen read. Among the number are – John Tyndall, Philip D. Evans, and about ten more of the best draftsmen on the Survey. The rest were useless hands. We are to start on the 21st inst. Think not however that we intend to bend passively beneath this stroke. Our case shall be laid before Sir Robert Peel. – It’s not improbable that your worthy son will be sent as a deputy to this illustrious man. It behooves me to look about me. I must be stirring. – One thing I want you to do for me – While we were in Leighlin Bridge Mr John Alexander expressed a wish to have his estate surveyed. I know it was not done at that time. It may remain undone to the present moment. Will you ascertain this? I would willingly engage in this job, if it were Mr Alexander’s wish to have it done. I venture to say I will furnish him with as respectable a map and as correct contents as any Surveyor in Lienster.⁷ If it be his wish I shall furnish him with some small specimens of map drawing in various styles. Send me a reply to this as quickly as possible. Let not my dismissal trouble you or my mother. The situation was a paltry one. My salary might answer a settled person pretty well, but for one who had to pay for furnished lodgings &c it was very poor. It is now a little better than £50 a year.

I’m neither grieved nor cast down by this circumstance. Brighter hours will come; one unwavering conviction bears me up, that I suffer by the hand of arbitrary power, not by the hand of justice, that the proceedings which led to my dismissal⁸ had their origin in uprightness of intention, and that they were such as would receive the approbation of every honest man.

Your affec. son | John

RI MS JT/1/TYP/10/3306

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