3996. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 7 April [1823]

 

MS: National Library of Wales, MS 4813D. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Dating from content, in particular Tom Southey’s planned trip to Canada.

My dear Wynn

I have just learnt that the emigration to Canada is going on from this coast to a very considerable extent but I am afraid in a manner which must soon tend to excite a strong feeling against it. Parishes are shipping off their paupers, – they go in crowded vessels without any surgeon on board & when they arrive they will find themselves upon the wide world without any person to direct them & forward them to the spot where Government according to your plan would give them allotments & secure them the means of subsistence till those plots be made available. There are 70 such persons going in the vessel from Maryport in which my brother has taken his passage.

(1)

Tom Southey was investigating the possibility of emigration to Canada. It is unclear which vessel he was hoping to take from Maryport. He eventually sailed from Whitehaven on 20 April 1823 on the brig Maria and reached Quebec on 27 May. The ship contained 53 settlers.

160 are gone in another. And there are vessels from Workington & Whitehaven freighted in a similar way. These are ships which go out in ballast to return with timber.

You see by this how much the disposition of the country accords at this time with the plan you sent me.

(2)

Parliament had voted £30,000 in 1822 to finance the settlement of poor Irish families in Upper Canada. However, Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton (1784–1841; DNB), Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1821–1828, was eager to extend this idea and produced ‘An Outline of a Plan of Emigration to Upper Canada’ in January 1823. He proposed that parishes all over the United Kingdom should be able to mortgage their poor rates in order to repay loans from the government, which would finance sending the parishes’ paupers to Canada. Each family would receive 100 acres of land; see Southey to Charles…

Now tho it is never desirable for Government to interfere with what it desires to be done without its interference. This appears to me one of those cases in which the object must be frustrated without a proper superintendence being exercised. Immediate relief from the surcharge of the poor is not all which must be looked to want to have regular outlets opened by which the xxxxx may overflow may always be carried off. But emigrants who go out in this manner must inevitably send back, if they do not xxx some of them bring back the most discouraging reports. This will be a great evil looking at it from a mere political light, & if humanity were out of the question. But xxxx both for policy & humanity <the sooner> a regular system be set in action the better; for we are come to think that stage in society in which emigration is as necessary a part of our xxxxxx social system, as swarming is of the economy of a beehive.

My brother goes to reconnoitre & see what can be done towards providing a place for his family. He purposes to return in the autumn & finally embark with them this time twelvemonths. We expect his credentials from the colonial office in three or four days. You will not wonder that this presses heavily upon my spirits, – so much so indeed as in some degree to unfit me for exertion while it renders it double necessary that I should exert myself.

Gifford I suppose is not well enough for business. He has not written to me since his illness, & the question I asked of him a fortnight ago whether he would have a paper upon the state of Sp. & Portugal has not been answered.

(3)

Southey did not write on this subject for the Quarterly Review.

God bless you
RS.

Keswick 7. April

Notes

1. Tom Southey was investigating the possibility of emigration to Canada. It is unclear which vessel he was hoping to take from Maryport. He eventually sailed from Whitehaven on 20 April 1823 on the brig Maria and reached Quebec on 27 May. The ship contained 53 settlers.[back]
2. Parliament had voted £30,000 in 1822 to finance the settlement of poor Irish families in Upper Canada. However, Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton (1784–1841; DNB), Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1821–1828, was eager to extend this idea and produced ‘An Outline of a Plan of Emigration to Upper Canada’ in January 1823. He proposed that parishes all over the United Kingdom should be able to mortgage their poor rates in order to repay loans from the government, which would finance sending the parishes’ paupers to Canada. Each family would receive 100 acres of land; see Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 25 January 1823, Letter 3957.[back]
3. Southey did not write on this subject for the Quarterly Review.[back]
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