The Cotman Letters 1804-1833

101
To Mr Cotman, Haberdashers, London Lane, Norwich.
July 22 1826. Yarmouth.

Dear Sir
You will pardon me, I trust, for troubling you with a letter. During the last four or five weeks I have been in occcasional correspondence with your son, Mr J. S. Cotman, upon the subject of his affairs; and I had hoped that my representations had had the effect of making him feel comparatively comfortable. A letter however, which I had from him last night undecieves me most painfully on this head and also gives me so much uneasiness that I cannot think I should do my duty without bringing the matter fully before his family, and urging you to take the most effectual steps to put his mind at rest.

Sometime before the vacation Mr Cotman was uneasy about his money matters: his fixing himself at Norwich has not been attended with the success he had anticipated, his drawinggsexposed at late exhibitions met with no purchases; and the state of the times had naturally had the effect of diminishing the number of his pupils. At the same time I could see nothing in the statement of his concerns to warrant the gloominess, indeed, despair, with which he evidently regarded his situation. His proposition had yielded him during the last year a net income of £200; and he said he saw no reason to anticipate at present any future depression. He has money too in our hands for immediate exigencies. The only thing therefore to be done was to apportion his means so as to meet his expenditure; and the first obvious step to be taken for that purpose was to rid himself of his present house, and find another better adapted to his circumstances. I had wished him to return to his own at Yarmouth, the whole charge of which would not have stood him at above £20 a year, and now that is out of the question I should be glad if he was to allow his friends to find him another house, which I think would be done for but little more. So long as Mr Cotman's teaching his between