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Huntington Library, RS 47. Previously published: Kenneth Curry (ed.), New Letters of Robert Southey, 2 vols (London and New York, 1965), I, pp. 346-347.
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 intrude upon you for the last time concerning this brother of mine. this evening I have received from him a letter as following –
Dear Robert
I am sorry to be obliged to take up my pen to undeceive you in respect to my being in some things fitted out for the
Navy, as my Aunt took care to get a person to dispose of my Uniform to a
travelling Jew, that she might have the money to help bear her expences into Herefordshire, where she gives me to understand she is
gone, but still orders me to direct my letters to Bristol (by the by I do not know your direction.) She has not sent me a farthing nor
wrote but once. I believe my information respecting an Ensigns
yours sincerely
It is evident then that there is a scheme to get him a red coat as suiting his taste & his Aunts better than the sea – & she has thought I should bestir myself the more on
the belief that he had quarrelld with her – for his former letters did assert a quarrel – & here a correspondence comes out.
considering her roguery & his roguery the sooner I settle the business the better – for
his drafts & letters have already cost me above twelve shillings. Be so good when you have read the inclosed to send it to May, & desire him if he approves it to forward it to Exeter. you had better send him
this also that he may see the anecdote of the Jew – & infer from thence how hopeless it x <would
be> to incur any new expences.
It is very fortunate that he has not found out my address (tho I dated Keswick) for such is his total want of all shame that it would not all surprize me were he to make his appearance here.