316. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [11 May 1798] ⁠* 

Friday

My dear Wynn

I should not wish Lewis to print either Lord William or Jasper, because they have not appeared with my name, & this previous publication would perhaps check lessen the sale of the volume in which I should hereafter print them. [1]  if you think this an insufficient reason act as tho it were so – & let him have them. at any rate he may have Rudiger & Donica, if he likes them. but alter a word he must not. [2]  they are I know hastily written & uncorrected – but you must be well aware that it is not adviseable to have any helping hand in a literary work however trifling.

I had thought of writing to George Strachey & sending him a book but as soon as I heard of his resolution to depart. [3]  you have revived the thought & I will this day write to Bristol to send off a copy. the passage from the Lutrin [4]  would have been well inserted – but I had no knowledge of it. when I read the Lutrin I had not that x acquaintance with French antiquities which would have led me to remark the passage. as for un tres mauvais poem – I quoted the phrase of Millin, because it was his condemnation for I had never read the Canons poem. [5]  this is a reason for it – but it was so written in the half-translating half-extract way, which you know a man in haste often falls into.

Will you assist me in raising a small sum for the family of the Midshipman who fell in the Mars. [6]  he was an extraordinary man, & one to whom my brother was much attached. Out of his pay he contr sent his wife & children 13 guineas a year, & all his hope was to be made Masters mate that he might make it 20 & then he said they should all be happy. there are three children – all young. he thought his family would be a protection for him – but he was prest into the service. he had served in America, & was one of those men who volunteered once to carry dispatches in a boat thro the French fleet. his understanding was strong tho wholly uncultivated. he read with difficulty & comprehended what he read slowly – but when once he had comprehended it, it was fixed for ever in his memory. I had almost forgotten the more striking features of his life. he had seduced the woman whom he aft afterwards married & as he told Tom, he could not bear his own reflections till he had married her. they were very happy, & he never spoke of her but with the warmest affection. th what remains had better perhaps not be mentioned. he was a Delegate in the first mutiny, & it was <is> said in the ship, that when a paper was brought there which was the death warrant of the officers he tore it to pieces. in the second he had nothing to do – & it is evident that his conduct must have unexceptionable or he would not afterwards have been a Midshipman. [7]  his name was Bligh. & from what I have said of the sum he wished to afford his wife, you will see that ten or fifteen pounds will be a considerable relief to her

I shall see you on Saturday the 19^th.

God bless you.

yrs truly

Robert Southey