2028. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [1 February 1812]

2028. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [1 February 1812] ⁠* 

My dear R.

I trouble you with two letters of great Brazilian importance. Mr Gooden  [1]  has offered me, thro Robinson, books of which I have been years & years in search, – & manuscripts which I want my Uncle to inspect.

There is an error in the Pop: Returns [2]  which it puzzles me to account for – in 1801 an excess of females, as to be expected, in, xxx 1811 an excess of males which during such a war, & with the former excess on the other side, must <seems to> be impossible. – The women with the army perhaps are not returned, but they cannot be numerous enough to explain it.

I am in the act of bringing your whole battery to bear upon Bankes, the Audit Office &c &c – in the Register. [3] 

RS.

Notes

* Address: To/ John Rickman Esqr
Endorsement: RS./ Feb 1812
MS: Huntington Library, RS 181. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished.
Dating note: This letter contained two enclosures: one to James Gooden, asking him to send Southey some books; and one to Herbert Hill, asking him to inspect Gooden’s manuscripts. The latter enclosure was Southey to Herbert Hill, 1 February 1812, Letter 2027. BACK

[1] Southey thanked Gooden for ‘the Life of F. Joam d’Almeida, among other books, and a manuscript Apology for the Jesuits in Paraguay and Maranham, of great importance’, see Southey’s History of Brazil, 3 vols (London, 1810–1819), II, p. [v]. BACK

[2] The census which Rickman oversaw. It took place every 10 years. BACK

[3] Henry Bankes (1757–1834; DNB), MP for Corfe Castle 1780–1826. Southey expressed his disapproval of Bankses’s campaign to abolish sinecures and the granting of reversion to state offices in Edinburgh Annual Register, for 1810, 3.1 (1812), 207–218. BACK

Addressee

Rickman, John (1771–1840)

People mentioned

Gooden, James (1773–1851) (mentioned 1 time)
Robinson, Henry Crabb (1777–1867) (mentioned 1 time)
Hill, Herbert (c. 1749–1828) (mentioned 1 time)
The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part Four
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