Address: To/ The Rt Honble/ C W Williams Wynn
MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4813D. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
It is a good thing to have a potential franker, whom I can trouble with dispatches for the twopenny post. Bedford sends me better tidings of Mrs Wynn than I found at Llangedwin on two former occasions.
(1)
Mary Wynn had just given birth, 4 October 1822, to her last child, Charles Williams-Wynn (1822–1896), MP for Montgomeryshire 1862–1880. When Southey visited Llangedwin in August 1811 and April 1820, Mary Wynn had recently suffered miscarriages.
I hope all is going on well, & that you are as happy as one who serves the public can be.
If you could see me at this time in a magic glass you might suppose I was as busy a man as yourself, my table being covered with dispatches folded in official form, & tied with red tape. – They are Freres papers which I received this week & am arranging & gutting as fast as I can.
(2)
Southey was working on his History of the Peninsular War (1823–1832).
The summer has been given up almost exclusively to exercise for the sake of my health, – & I must now work the harder to make up for the time thus expended.
The Port. Cortes who have in other things behaved less ill than the Spanish are following them in their colonial mispolicy.
(3)
An army revolt in Porto in August 1820 led to the election of a Cortes in Portugal in December 1820 and demands that the monarchy return from Brazil, whence it had fled in 1807–1808 following the French invasion. John VI (1767–1826; King of Portugal 1816–1826) arrived back in Lisbon on 3 July 1821 and eventually agreed to a new liberal Constitution in October 1822. John VI appointed his son, Pedro (1798–1834; Emperor of Brazil 1822–1831), as Regent in Brazil, and Pedro summoned an elected advisory council to represent the different Brazilian provinces. The new Portuguese Constitution was unacc…
I am sorry for any thing which increases the probability of anarchy & desolation in Brazil. Portugal is not so far gone in revolution, but that an able statesman (such as Pombal
(4)
Sebastião José Carvalho e Melo, Marquis of Pombal (1699–1782), Prime Minister of Portugal 1750–1777.
would have been had he lived in this age) might set all to rights, – nothing being needed there but to reform abuses & bring their own good laws into use, – the evil having been that they were always in abeyance.
(5)
Medieval Portugal developed a representative body, the Cortes. This had ceased to meet after 1698.
Such a statesman there is no hope & little chance of seeing. And much must depend upon the course of events in Spain.
(6)
An army revolt in 1820 had restored the Constitution of 1812, but Spain was deeply divided between liberals and conservatives.
I grieve to see Mina
(7)
Francisco Espoz y Mina (1781–1836), guerrilla leader in Navarre during the Peninsular War. He supported the Revolution of 1820 and fought vigorously against the French invasion in 1823.
& Eroles
(8)
Joaquin Ibanez Cuevas y de Valonga, Baron de Eroles (1784–1825), Spanish commander in Catalonia during the Peninsular War. He opposed the liberal regime and supported the French invasion of 1823.
opposed to each other. It is happy for Romana
(9)
Pedro Caro y Sureda, 3rd Marquis of La Romana (1761–1811), Commander of the Spanish Division of the North.
& Albuquerque
(10)
Jose Miguel de la Cueva, 13th Duke of Albuquerque (1774–1811), Spanish general and representative in the United Kingdom 1810–1811.
that they are in their graves.
But it is time to close my dispatches for the post -
God bless you
RS.
