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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.
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I send you Bryan Edwards 3 vol.xx Davis of Kidwellysxxx reasons for doubting it, & the Buccaneers.
Munoz will be your best guide as far <as> he goes, tho you will glean a good deal from old Pietro Martire. Your
first sentence should be relate the discovery of the St Salvadore,the first part Columbus’s transactions, – Charlevoix about the French in St Domingo (his last two
volumes) – Labat about the other French islands.was xxx xxx wanted almost its prints, which constitute great part of its
book-value on account of the engraver, so I returned it, but I shall purchase the first good copy which I can find. Meantime you may
perhaps discover it in one of the Durham Libraries. It’s title is Histoire Generale des Antilles par le Pere Du Tertre four volumes of
the old French quarto size, which is between our quarto & the Spanish, – a sort of mule, neither so small as one nor so big as the
other. Being an old book & a good one it is likely enough to be in one those collections. You will be sure to find some books to
your purpose there & had better make use of them while they are in your reach, because if you should get a ship at any time you may
take mine to sea. Xxx
I send Holmes that you may see exactly the nature of a chronological history. Only yours must be more abundant in notes
& miscellaneous matter so that the moral & physical history may be given as well as the succession of civil events. – You shall
work upon Herrara
The parcel went off on Monday. It is directed to Mr Castles.
Hurra for the Attaman Platoffxxx he were taken prisoner. He would put him in the open country, & pile
round him xxx a huge mound of the dead who had perished in his flight, with their faces turnd toward him, as they had
stiffened in their agonies, – xx xxx xxx xxx xx xxxx xx xxx xxx xx xxx xx xxx so that which-ever way he looked those ghastly
faces & dead eyes should be xxx upon him – & there xxx xxxx xx xxx <xxx leave
xxx the Tyrant> to stiffen & freeze in the midst of them. – There is a grandeur in the thought which perfectly
galvanised me. It would not only be the fittest punishment & worthy catastrophe of such a tragedy but it would be the finest &
most aweful circumstance in human history past or to come.
He I fear will make a run for it & get into Poland. And I think that both Austria & Prussia will play a
miserable part, & prevent Russia from crushing him – They will be jealous of Russia, & very probably may think that if they act
as mediators, & make up a peace, they may obtain restitution of some of their lost territory from Buonoparte in his weakness. From
the North of Germany, there is more to be hoped, & I wish to Heaven we had 20000 men to land there. I would offer to the Dutch
Batavia & the Spice Islands – & a free trade with the Cape. – But if the settling of the Continent were mine I would form
Holland & Flanders & Hanover into one Commonwealth, & give them Louis Buonaparte
I have had a copy made of Mrs Danvers’s picture, & Robert
Hancock
The 15th sheet of Nelson
Such another days work as I have done this morning will finish the tenth book of Roderick,xxxx renders him infamous.
As far as is possible I think I shall succeed, & in point of skill, this will be as Juniperxxxx farewell, & go to it again for the remainder of the evening. Our love to Sarah. – Do not let me forget to say in case of another fall upon the scrapes, or any cut, –
that the easiest & most efficacious of all styptics is the dust of that fungus which is called the Devils powder-puff, or his
snuff-box. Gather the next you meet with for this purpose. John Wesley furnished me with the fact.xx <blood> was instantly xxxx
staunched. – This same powder burnt under a hive will stupify the bees.