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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. 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 beg leave to present you with all my right & title to a turtle – but you must look sharp after it. Tom has shipped one on board the Aberdeen, Capt Cummingstake see it on board the coach for Keswick. – I have been laughing this half hour
at the excellent & seaman like absurdity of sending me a turtle, – till it occurred to me that it might be worth your looking
after, if it be not eat by the way.
Poor Lord Proby’s common place book has been gutted of what little it contained & given to my brother – who I believe you know is in the Amelia.Amelia, who, having been sent to the disease-ridden
Leeward Islands station, died on 6 August 1804 at Surinam, from yellow fever. Wynn had asked Southey if his brother, who was
currently serving on the Amelia, could recover any of Proby’s papers for his family and friends; see Southey to
Thomas Southey, 7 December 1805, Letter 1130.in his dying on his death bed.Danae (formerly the French frigate, Vaillante, which was
captured in 1798). In March 1800, under Proby’s command, her crew mutinied, took control of the ship and handed it over to the
French.
Tom enquires your direction as if he had a design upon you with another turtle.
Poor fellow he has been very unlucky in the Amelia doing nothing for eight months, & catching nothing but the yellow fever.
Government ought to augment the pay upon foreign stations for, in the West Indies it is not equal to the rest: I can learn nothing
satisfactory about the disputed prize money.Amelia, of which Thomas Southey was a lieutenant, had captured the Spanish brig Isabella
and the ship Conception, both laden with wine and brandy, and the ship Commerce, laden
with cotton. It was customary for naval officers to be allotted a share of the value of ships and cargo captured in armed conflict,
but in this case the prize money was contested because the ships were captured before war was officially declared.were to have the whole as usual.x a measure so unpopular
I mean to tell the Cids story more at length & publish it in a little volume with erudite notes some of the Ballads
about him &c.
The Specimens can only make two volumes I conceive.