Journal of a Lady of Quality

I just spent some time reading "Journal of a Lady of Quality" by Lady Janet Schaw from 1774-1776. It is an account of Lady Schaw's travels from Leith in Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina and Portugal. The journal was found apparently unknown to most of the world and published in 1921 by Yale University Press in a version edited by Evangeline Walker Andrews and Charles McLean Andrews.

The book is dense with a secondary editor's narrative wrapping the actual journal.

Schaw has an interesting personality and a disarming way of telling what is at time an engaging story. I read the journal, mostly focused on her critique of NC society and culture. There are some real gems in the journal. One good line I read in the journal was "We have an invitation to a ball in Wilmington, and will go down to it someday soon. This is the last that is to be given, as the congress has forbid every kind of diversion, even card-playing*" p.(149).

Also, her description of a social event in Wilmington was humorous. "I have been in town a few days, and have had an opportunity to make some little observations on the manners of a people so new to me. The ball I mentioned was intended as a civility, therefore I will not criticize it, and tho' I have not the same reason to spare the company, yet I will not fatigue you with a description, which however lively or just, would at best resemble a Dutch picture, where the injudicious choice of the subject destroys the merit of the painting" (p. 153-4).

One more p. 183 "Here I know your delicacy will be shocked, and I hear you ask, if our young man bear us company in this sequestrate apartment. Oh yes, my friend, he does, but he is too much oppressed himself to observe us. This serock [sirocco] has the same effect here as Briden tells us it has in Sicily; it has ruined all vivacity, as my pen shows you, and renders us languid in thought, word and deed...Mr Neilson, our new friend, is gone up the country again and we are to follow in a few days, and pass some time at Newbern. I find [feel] the loss of his company: he is that sort of man, who is of all others the fittest companion for us at present. He has seen a great deal of the world; his manners, naturally soft, give him a sort of Melancholy, that is far from displeasing any where, but here is particularly agreeable. I am told he is in love and I make no doubt that is true. I should be glad to be acquainted with the Lady, for from what I am able to discover of his sentiments she must have something more than mere beauty to recommend her to his regard, different from the men of this country; I should hope she will be satisfied with the lot assigned her. But, good heaven! think of my talking in that way of a poor fellow that is chaced from place to place, and uncertain of his life. In the present situation, love does not admit of the various cares that press him; friendship however may be a consolation to him, and as he appears worthy, I dare say you will approve of my affording him as much esteem as is fit for me to bestow, or as he will ever desire of me."

Anyway, the journal does help on the topic with some context. And the appendixes help on some of the characters in the movement. There is a great paragraph on loyalist thinking on p.192. It does not really address regulators, but it is really interesting.