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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), I, pp. 54–56.
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.
All quotation marks and apostrophes have been changed: " for “," for ”, ' for ‘, and ' for ’.
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
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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.
I had thought of writing to George
Strachey & sending him a book but as soon as I heard of his
resolution to depart.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.
Will you assist me in raising a small sum for
the family of the Midshipman who fell in the Mars.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.