Becoming Jane Austen
The True Love Story That Inspired
the Classic Novels
by John Spence
Part of a continuing series.
Not least of the reasons for their (Phila and Betsy) leaving England was that living abroad was less expensive. Tysoe had not made the great fortune he had dreamt of leaving his wife and daughter, and the failure had made him wretched at the end of his life. Whatever peace of mind he had on this score came from his friend Warren Hastings, who had given his goddaughter Betsy £10,000 in trust. Tysoe worried because he thought his wife had no head for business and would find it difficult to live on the income from the trust.
He once wrote with almost tender regret to Phila: "You know how incapable you are of managing such complicated affairs. Oh Phila, had a very few of those hours which were formerly spent in dissipations been employed in acquiring the necessary and most useful knowledge of Accounts, happy would it have been for us both." To make sure their daughter had practical skills he thought her mother lacked, he insisted that Betsy have good instruction in mathematics as a part of her education. "I must request you would get for her the best writing master to be procured by money and that she as soon as possible may begin to learn arithmetic. Her other accomplishments will be the ornaments to her, but these are most absolutely necessary."
Jane Austen
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When Hancock died, his lawyer, John Woodman, wrote to Warren Hastings: "I am sorry to find Mr. Hancock's affairs are in so bad a situation: all his effects will not more than clear his debts here (in England). " It seems both Woodman and Hastings miscalculated. Before Phila and Betsy left England for the Continent, Woodman paid about £3,500 into Phila's bank account, and another £4,800 was deposited in the form of a bill on the East India Company, evidently the settling of Tysoe's estate in India. It is, of course, possible that Hastings himself provided this money, pretending that it had come from Hancock. Whatever the source of the money, Phila was now a rich widow and Betsy equally rich in her own right.
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