4000. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 18 April 1823

Endorsement: Ap^r. 18. 1823
MS: Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 26. ALS; 3p.
Unpublished.

My dear G.

Thank you for the half notes, & thank you also for your solicitude concerning an evil which is not to be averted.

Wynn has done all that I asked him, & I believe also all that could be done at this time, by facilitating matters at the Colonial Office, & obtaining him thro that channel good letters of introduction. The time when he might have been served in his profession was when M^r Grenville was at the Admiralty, – & perhaps this would have been done if that Administration had not built a wall that they might run their heads against it.

⁽²⁾

There prevails an opinion that I have made a large fortune by my writings that I enjoy large pensions, & moreover am a person of the greatest influence with government. Upon this latter point, even my brother who ought to have been wiser, has presumed far too much. The ship

⁽³⁾

which he did gain thro my means would never have been obtained by had it not been for Herries. No other course was left for him, but that which he is now taking. – My death, – or disablement – (even the latter a possible event at any moment) would leave him without any assistance; – his, or that of his wife, – would throw a family of eight children

⁽⁴⁾

– almost wholly upon my hands. He will secure a provision for them by emigration, at the cost of some privations & some difficulties at first – It has long been a burthen upon my mind, – which has but too many cares of its own

———

I have behaved ill to Cunningham in not thanking him for the tales which he sent me.

⁽⁵⁾

The real cause has been that I meant to write more than a mere letter of thanks, & have never found time to do it. The older I grow, the slower I proceed with my compositions, – & the less leisure I have.

Has the Mag: Rot. tried acupunctuation for his rheumatism? I see a treatise upon it advertised.

⁽⁶⁾

Do not delay the Vegetable Marrow Seeds – because the seasons will tarry for no man, & it is time they were in the hot-bed.

⁽⁷⁾

God bless you
RS.

Apr. 18. 1823.

Notes

1. Tom Southey was considering emigrating to Canada and Southey had mobilised his friends to help.[back]

2. The government of 1806–1807 had fallen because of its insistence on pressing George III (1738–1820; King of Great Britain 1760–1820; DNB) to agree to Catholic Emancipation.[back]

3. Tom Southey never commanded a Royal Navy ship; it is not clear which posting he received due to Herries’s intervention.[back]

4. Margaret Hill Southey (b. 1811); Mary Hill Southey (b. 1812); Robert Castle Southey (1813–1828); Herbert Castle Southey (1815–1864); Eleanor Thomasina Southey (1816–1835); Sarah Louise Southey (1818–1850); Nelson Castle Southey (1820–1834); and Sophia Jane Southey (1822–1859). Thomas Castle Southey (1824–1896) completed the family.[back]

5. Allan Cunningham, Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, a Dramatic Poem; The Mermaid of Galloway; The Legend of Richard Faulder; and Twenty Scottish Songs (1822), no. 745 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s library.[back]

6. James Morss Churchill (1796–1863), A Treatise on Acupuncturation; Being a Description of a Surgical Operation Originally Peculiar to the Japanese and Chinese, and by Them Denominated Zin-King. Now Introduced into European Practice, with Directions for its Performance and Cases Illustrating its Success (1821).[back]

7. A nineteenth-century method of growing salad crops up to a month earlier than usual, by planting them on top of a layer of manure that provided heat as it broke down.[back]

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Ian Packer

4000. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 18 April 1823

4000. Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 18 April 1823

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey: Part Seven

Lynda Pratt, Ian Packer