3933. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 15 December 1822
Address: To/ G C B/ G.C. Bedford Esqre/ Exchequer/ Westminster
Stamped: KESWICK/ 298
Postmark: E/ 18 DE 18/ 1822
Endorsements: 15. Decr. 1822.; 16. Decr.1822
MS: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. lett. c. 26. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 354–355.
Mackenzie
enabled me to make the narrative of Romanas escape
as compleat as you see it, – by delivering me in writing, what he related to me at Paris. To Sir Augustus Fraser
I am obliged, thro his brother in law Major Moor for the largest body of communications which I have been able to obtain, consisting of a series of his letters describing the whole course progress of the army while he was with it from the 1810 to the end of the war, transcribed into a large volume, with plans &c, as at one time intended for publication, – an intention I believe laid aside in part because of the announcement of my undertaking. Certainly I shall derive more advantage from these letters than from any other series of documents. You will therefore allow that both Sir Augustus (whom I have never seen) & Major Moor who transcribed the letters & offered them to me, are richly entitled to this return. I think I mentioned in my list that both copies should be consigned to Longmans care, he being Moor’s publisher. Moor is author of the Hindoo Pantheon & of course intimate with my friends Yamen, Seeva &c.
Now for Herries. Tho I am indebted to him for many civilities I should not on that score alone send him a book which he would otherwise buy without hesitation. But there are things relating to his own Department,
for which in the subsequent volumes I shall want information from him.
My dear Grosvenor more than half that eleemosynary list consists of persons without whose aid the book could not have been composed, – e – g – Marquis Wellesley – Whittingham,
– Frere & his brother – Sir Hew Dalrymple &c &c, & these as much belong to the charges of the work, as the printers or stationers bill. From ten to twelve copies stand on the score of private feeling, & will be received either as acknowledgements for kindness, – or as memorials of friendship, – carrying with them in either case an ideal value, which you very well know <how> to appreciate. – I have, God knows, received a great many acts of kindness, – none of which have I have ever forgotten, whxx. <But> I shall go out of the world on the debtor side of the account <at last>, – not for want of will, but of means. x xxxxx
As for your own copy, – pay me for it by giving me a good portrait of yourself, – in place of the ill likeness which poor Nash made.
God bless you
RS
15 Dec. 1822. Keswick
