In a story that I’m almost certain nobody has read (based on everyone I have asked about it)…hundreds of thousands of letters that were seized by British warships centuries ago, now are getting digitized for analysis by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.
Somewhere in the U.K. National Archives in London, there are 4,000 boxes containing more than 160,000 undelivered letters from ships captured by the British during the naval wars of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
Now those letters — some of which are bundled in old mail bags and affixed with wax seals that have never been broken — are about to go online.
The mail, sent mostly between 1652 and 1815, is written in 19 different languages and contains songs, notebooks, packages and personal correspondence.
Many of the letters are made inherently tragic by having never reached their destination.
A series of four letters from a Madam Dupont in Quebec between 1702 and 1703 show a woman frantically trying to reach her husband, who is away on business in France, and growing increasingly despondent by his lack of response.
“These letters are full of the hazards of the flu epidemic and chicken pox in Quebec and her tone gets more and more desperate, because she doesn’t get any sign of life from her husband,” Freist said.
“She feels utterly neglected and resented and finally decides not to write anymore. In the letter she says: ‘You can’t love me anymore if you don’t answer. I will now stop writing. I give up.’ But then she writes again and she implores her husband once again to come back.”
No word yet on why the German Prize Papers Project is leading the effort for a British archive.
I almost feel like this is the German way of trying to prove again how terrible the British Empire was for global humanity.
Speaking of letters of humanity, and of messages sent but never received…the Fatoumata Diawara video Interini about migration is a must watch/listen:
Cette chanson parle de la souffrance que la distance inflige aux amoureux. Mon amour et mon confident est parti loin et ne me donne pas signe de vie. Je l’aime malgré tout et il me manque nuit et jour. J’aimerai avoir des nouvelles de mon chéri, sinon je n’arrive pas à dormir.
Mon amour est parti loin
Mon amour a pris son envol
Il est parti s’installer dans un pays lointain
This song speaks of the suffering that distance inflicts on lovers. My love and my confidant have gone away and do not give me any sign of life. I love him despite everything and he misses me night and day. I would like to hear from my darling, otherwise I can not sleep.
My love is gone away
My love took flight
He moved to a distant country