Journal of Discourses, Vol.4, p.35, Brigham Young, August 31, 1856
When we reached England we designed to start a paper, but we had not the first penny to do it with. I had enough to buy a hat and pay my passage to Preston, for from the time I left home, I had worn an old cap which my wife made out of a pair of old pantaloons; but the most of us were entirely destitute of means to buy even any necessary article.
We went to Preston and held our Conference, and decided that we would publish a paper; brother Parley P. Pratt craved the privilege of editing it, and we granted him the privilege. We also decided to print three thousand hymn books, though we had not the first cent to begin with, and were strangers in a strange land. We appointed brother Woodruff to Herefordshire, and I accompanied him on his journey to that place. I wrote to brother Pratt for information about his plans, and he sent me his prospectus, which stated that when he had a sufficient number of subscribers and money enough in hand to justify his publishing the paper, he would proceed with it. How long we might have waited for that I know not, but I wrote to him to publish two thousand papers, and I would foot the bill. I borrowed two hundred and fifty pounds of sister Jane Benbow, one hundred of Brother Thomas Kington, and returned to Manchester, where we printed three thousand Hymn Books, and five thousand Books of Mormon, and issued two thousand Millennial Stars monthly, and in the course of the summer printed and gave away rising of sixty thousand tracts. I also paid from five to ten dollars per week for my board, and hired a house for brother Willard Richards and his wife who came to Manchester, and sustained them; and gave sixty pounds to brother P. P. Pratt to bring his wife from New York. I also commenced the emigration in that year.
I was there one year and sixteen days, with my brethren the Twelve and during that time I bought all my clothing, except one pair of pantaloons, which the sisters gave me in Liverpool soon after I arrived there, and which I really needed. I told the brethren, in one of my discourses, that there was no need of their begging, for if they needed anything the sisters could understand that. The sisters took the hint, and the pantaloons were forthcoming.
p.35-36
I paid three hundred and eighty dollars to get the work started in London, and when I arrived home, in Nauvoo, I owed no person one farthing. Brother Kington received his pay from the books that were printed, and sister Benbow, who started to America the same year, left names enough of her friends to receive the two hundred and fifty pounds, which amount was paid them, notwithstanding I held her agreement that she had given it to the Church.
We left two thousand five hundred dollars worth of books in the Office, paid our passages home, and paid about six hundred dollars to emigrate the poor who were starving to death, besides giving away the sixty thousand tracts; and that too though I had not a sixpence when we first landed in Preston, and I do not know that one of the Twelve had. |
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