Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

study. Most explorations in this field tend either to be confined to an account of the causes and circumstances of some aspect of emigration from Britain or else to an examination of the activities of the emigrants having arrived in America. It is rare, indeed, to be presented with so detailed and thoughtful an analysis as this of the relationships between Baptists (or any other group) on both sides of the Atlantic. The wide span of original materials which the author has traversed is deeply impressive. He has ranged in detail through many sources on the American side: in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island, Kentucky and New York. On this side of the water he has been no less painstaking in combing the manuscripts to be found in the National Library of Wales and Regent's Park College, Oxford. He has turned to particularly good account the voluminous correspondence as well as the printed tracts of the major figures involved on both sides of the ocean. One welcomes the book very warmly and hopes that it will be the first of many to flow from the author's pen. Dr Davies takes as the core of his study the pivotal figure of the Revd Samuel Jones (1735-1814), a Welshman who emigrated with his father, Thomas Jones, previously an elder in the Glamorgan Baptist church at Pen- y-fai, and the rest of the family to America. Samuel was a two-year-old infant when they arrived in Pennsylvania in 1737. He was a Welsh-speaking Welshman who remained intensely conscious of his ethnic origins through- out his life. He cherished what he himself described as a 'peculiar regard' for the Welsh, though never to the extent of allowing this to diminish one whit of his passionate pride in being American. He became a leading figure in American Baptist circles, a widely respected minister and adviser, and a highly successful man of business and affairs. So much so that it was he who was called upon to preach the sermon intended to celebrate the centenary of the Philadelphia Association in 1807. However, the main focus of the work is not on the biographical details of Samuel Jones, fascinating though they may be, but on the connections which he established with other North American Baptists and with his fellow-believers back in Britain. Among Jones's most interesting and devoted British correspondents were Joshua Thomas, Morgan Jones, and William Richards of Lynn. Joshua Thomas, an unusually percipient and conscientious historian, thanks to the correspondence became increasingly conscious of the close links which existed between Wales and America and particularly of the pioneering role of the Baptists in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Like Samuel Jones, he was much concerned that many of these connections, and their value to the Baptists on both sides of the Atlantic, should be preserved. This was, as the author affirms, 'Baptist transatlantic co-operation at its best'. Furthermore, Samuel Jones was a figure of 'first resort' for many of the Welsh who emigrated to America.