4018. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 12 May [1823]

 

Address: To/ J Rickman Esqre 
Endorsement: RS to JR 12 May
MS: Huntington Library, RS 435. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: Year is taken from the content.

My dear R.

Are there none of the old muster rolls preserved among the Records, – from which the population of the kingdom at different times may be computed? – I am led to ask the question by seeing it stated that they proved at one time a great diminution.

(1)

Muster rolls are registers of soldiers in military units. In the early modern period English counties organised part-time militias in which all adult men were theoretically liable to serve and were required to receive military training. Their records could therefore be used to estimate the size of the population. Southey’s Book of the Church, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, p. 123, noted that ‘the Muster-books, which in those ages answered, though imperfectly, the purpose of a census’ indicated that there was ‘a manifest decrease of population’ in the mid-sixteenth-century, following the dissolutio…

What an unaccountable thing is the enormous mortality of the present year, without any epidemic, or prevalent disease! – or any assignable cause from weather, or scarcity.

(2)

This was widely reported; see, for example: ‘The extraordinary changes of climate to which we have been exposed during the Winter and Spring, (hitherto) have we learn, produced an appalling increase in mortality. It is stated, and we believe on good authority, that the deaths in London, within the last four months, exceed the average of two-thirds of the year at any former common period; apoplexy particularly prevails’ (Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 27 March 1823).

I would congratulate you upon this Irish examination if there were any hope that it would be considered a fair Reductio ad absurdum, – against all such examinations in the H. of Commons.

(3)

On 21 April 1823 the House of Commons had voted to set up a committee of the whole house to examine the convoluted legal proceedings against some members of the Orange Order, who had led a riot in the New Theatre Royal in Dublin on 14 December 1822. Local officials were accused of colluding to prevent prosecution of the rioters, while William Plunket (1764–1864; DNB), the Irish attorney-general 1822–1827, was alleged to have abused due legal process to bring charges against the rioters. The matter was debated on ten separate days in the House of Commons in May 1823.

Assuredly nothing can be more inconsistent with the character & original purpose of such an Assembly.

Did you see the open assertion of the Courier, that in every struggle between Parliament & the Press, the Press must triumph?

(4)

On 9 May 1823 the Courier had asserted: ‘We certainly never wish to see the day when a direct struggle for mastery shall exist between Parliament and the Press of the country; but we should declare at once, and our efforts would be in support of that declaration, “the Press must triumph.” It would triumph too, and signally, for it might as well be attempted to chain up the winds by Act of Parliament, as to stop the motion of that mighty engine, a free press.’

This is not a proposition which a resolute minister would assent to!

bless you
RS.

12 May.

Notes

1. Muster rolls are registers of soldiers in military units. In the early modern period English counties organised part-time militias in which all adult men were theoretically liable to serve and were required to receive military training. Their records could therefore be used to estimate the size of the population. Southey’s Book of the Church, 2 vols (London, 1824), II, p. 123, noted that ‘the Muster-books, which in those ages answered, though imperfectly, the purpose of a census’ indicated that there was ‘a manifest decrease of population’ in the mid-sixteenth-century, following the dissolution of the monasteries.[back]
2. This was widely reported; see, for example: ‘The extraordinary changes of climate to which we have been exposed during the Winter and Spring, (hitherto) have we learn, produced an appalling increase in mortality. It is stated, and we believe on good authority, that the deaths in London, within the last four months, exceed the average of two-thirds of the year at any former common period; apoplexy particularly prevails’ (Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 27 March 1823).[back]
3. On 21 April 1823 the House of Commons had voted to set up a committee of the whole house to examine the convoluted legal proceedings against some members of the Orange Order, who had led a riot in the New Theatre Royal in Dublin on 14 December 1822. Local officials were accused of colluding to prevent prosecution of the rioters, while William Plunket (1764–1864; DNB), the Irish attorney-general 1822–1827, was alleged to have abused due legal process to bring charges against the rioters. The matter was debated on ten separate days in the House of Commons in May 1823.[back]
4. On 9 May 1823 the Courier had asserted: 'We certainly never wish to see the day when a direct struggle for mastery shall exist between Parliament and the Press of the country; but we should declare at once, and our efforts would be in support of that declaration, “the Press must triumph.” It would triumph too, and signally, for it might as well be attempted to chain up the winds by Act of Parliament, as to stop the motion of that mighty engine, a free press.'[back]
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