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British Library, Add MS 30927. 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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
Because of web browser variability, all hyphens have been typed on the U.S. keyboard.
Dashes have been rendered as a variable number of hyphens to give a more exact rendering of their length.
Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
£ has been used for £, the pound sign
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
In the Basque Roads business,x way to have begun by taking the Isle & so securing the passage?
–
Tell me also another thing – where did the L’Orient squadron under Tronde
Tell me too what you believe the rise of the tide to be in the B. Roads – for on this point Cochrane & Gambiers
witnesses differ a good deal. – the former stating it at about 10 or 12 feet – The latter speaking only of spring tides which they
state at 21. – I wish the Trial had arrived when you were here, for I do not like writing the account xx without you. If you
are at Durham when it is in the press (which I suppose you will) I will have a proof sent to you. It will be printed within a fortnight
probably.
What size ship was the Calcutta, which then made part of the French force?Calcutta, which had been captured by the French in 1805. It was destroyed by British ships in
1809.
______
This volume runs to a most merciless length.
Henceforth I have undertaken the scissars part of the business – that is the newspaper selections forming what is
called the Chronicle.Home D to show this was [MS obscured] for 1809. He however has put [MS obscured] much of which the whole essence has
necessarily been extracted by me in the Annals, that it is just as ill managed this year as the last. So I have consented to do it for
the future. The trouble in fact is none, – merely cutting out & dating at the time for the convenience of arrangement. – The pay
three guineas per sheet – amounting to about 50 guineas on the fair average. Now Tom comes the beauty of this arrangement. Such a job
of course is best done regularly as the papers come in – but where was I to put the scraps that they might be safely & at the same
time commodiously kept. I have had a box made for the nonce, – such a box Tom – O Tom such a box!
Mawsonxxxx <but> when open the part <it> is flat – not
xxxx xxx an inclined plane. Then too it is yew, & when you lift up the inner cover, as in a desk, one on each side,
are twelve partitions, for the twelve months, the breadth of a newspaper column, & of reasonable length. Cellarage for two years, –
the one for the printing volume, the other xx <for> the current year. This is an invention of my own, – & a very
ingenious invention it is. I regret that you & Sarah are not here to admire
it, & rejoice over it with me, – as I do her the justice to believe she would do.
Being thus led to cut up the newspapers I have fallen upon the plan of xx cutting out all those parts which
are the materials for the Annals, & pasting them in thin books, under proper arrangement. This will be of much
facilitate the composition & save much time as Edith makes the books. Here
too I have xx introduced an invention worthy of a patent, or a gold medal. Some columns would occasionally occur that could
not be pasted down, – because the matter continued to the other side of the page. What then was to be done? Mark my contrivance. I
pasted into the blue book a slip of blank paper folded in three folds, the lower fold being fastened to the page. On the xxx
upper I pasted (this too by <in> a most ingenious manner) about 2 or 2 ½ inches of tape. The other end of this
xxx tape (with like ingenuity) is secured to the top of the column, which then folds up to the shape
<height> of the page. And then when required the tape permits the column to be turned, & read on either side. An admirable
contrivance, verily most excellent, & invented wholly by me Robert Southey, Author of Kehama & the History of Brazil.
These books will be valuable. I shall bind them up & letter them Newspaper Collections for the History of 1810.
In describing the above contrivance I forgot to explain wherefor the paper is in those folds, it is for the purpose, by means of the middle fold of allowing play, like the elastic worn in bracers – lest by an incautious handling the tape should be torn off. On the least pull the folds open, & prevent this effectually.
You may tell the Doctor that a Scotch Lady of his
acquaintance has scraped acquaintance with me on the score his Domineships score. She is a Miss Farquharson
I grieve that you cannot see Pasley’s Book, – the most important political work that has ever appeared.
Longman tells me Kehama is going on very well. 322 copies were disposed of when
he wrote. My Evangelical Article