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. Not previously published.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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I received a letter last night from Harry which has vexed
me a good deal. he mentions the receipt of the last ten £ you sent him, & the inconvenience which he suffers for want of more
regular & adequate supplies he goes on in these words ‘To write to a person with whom I have so little personal acquaintance as
Mr May upon this subject is disagreeable to myself & must be troublesome to him. I have indeed so often
annoyed him that I feel unwilling to write now, the more so, as I cannot express myself so strongly as I would wish without appearing
rude. In a fortnight I shall be pressed for money if I do not receive some. Let me be regularly supplied even with little, & let me
know what I am to expect, & I shall accommodate myself to my situation – or endeavour to better it.’ – he says also – ‘I do not
lead an extravagant life, on the contrary I never was more œconomical in my habits’.
A year & half hence when he has his diploma in his pocket it will be very well that he should endeavour to
attempt better himself – but any attempt of that kind now would ruin all his professional views – & I own it is what
I have been at times apprehensive of, recollecting the effect of a similar pressure upon myself – tho my supplies were more scanty than
his.
What I know of my Uncles English income was communicated in
my last,prob the next
quarter as the allowance from Wm Taylor will be coming in, there will be no call
on my Uncle – under these circumstances I think I am justified in requesting you to send him 20 £ – tho I write with almost as much
reluctance as he himself would have done – for in all likelihood it is asking you to advance – in plain English to lend – the money.
& the habit of receiving obligations from you has as little blunted the feeling with which I remember them – as it has the sense of
their value.
There would have been money in abundance but for what has been squandered upon Edward. fifty you remitted to Miss
Tyler – for his first fitting out – on which she did not expend a third part of the sum. 140 Dr Thomas expended – all this in one year – when a third part would have done all we wished for
Harry. – the same revenues which supplied this money will
are coming in again, & you may be assured that had there been a doubt of the whole 300 £ being paid in, my Uncle would not have preferred Edward to his brother. his intention was to increase our power of disposing of his money – not to limit it.
When you
Can you tell me Mrs Gonnes direction? I should have said Mr Gonnes for if I know his mercantile address – that will not be likely to change like a town residence – & tell me if you can whether that poor child of hers whom I saw in May last be dead.
y 26. 1805.