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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. 145-149; Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 166-167 [in part].
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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On my return from a long journey thro
Alentejo & Algarve I found three letters from you. two
scraps & the longer one in which you plead for the
Catholic emancipation.
I cannot argue against toleration. yet is
Popery in its nature so very damnable & destructive a
system that I could not give a vote for its sufferance in
England. I could no more permit the existence of a monastic
establishment, than the human sacrifices of Mexican
idolatry. you say forbid their endowment – but the great
pillars of monkery are those orders that cannot be endowed –
the whole family of Franciscans. you say they are bound by
no law & may come out of their convents. but they are
bound by their own law – by vows blasphemous to Almighty
God, & treasonable to human nature & civil society.
Of all Catholics the Irish are the most bigotted &
bloody. here we know them. there is
danger from the increase of Popery – your higher classes –
your middle class are turning infidels – true. but look at
the great body of the poor – with what a hunger & thirst
for the marvellous they swallow every new dose of
superstition. observe the growth of methodism – perhaps more
nearly connected with popery than is generally imagined. I
have reason to believe they have arrived at confession already. All I would prohibit should be
the monastic institutions. educate their priests in England.
tolerate the counter-poisons of Deism & Atheism – the
great antidotes. these caustics are rooting out the cancer
here & in Spain. they will indeed make a sore wound –
but not a deadly one.
I have now travelled about a thousand miles
in Portugal, & acquired a tolerably accurate knowledge
of the greater part of the Kingdom. the northern provinces
are yet unvisited. I wish much to remain another year – it
would so compleatly suit my inclinations – health &
pursuits – but my Mother is looking anxiously for my return &
home I must go – if a man who has
no fixed place of rest may use the word. I am in perfect
health. for six months not one seizure – not one symptom has
annoyed me. but I dread an English winter, & the worse
blasts of an English spring. my stay may be from 4 to 6
weeks longer. sooner I cannot well depart – nor for the
heats remain later – as to remove to Cintra would not be
worth the expence & trouble. If there should be a
Bristol bound ship I shall for oeconomy sake embark in it.
the packet passage being now advanced to 20 guineas. On my
return I shall soon leave Bristol to pass thro Wales to the
Lakes, there to pass the Autumn & perhaps the winter. my
Welsh abode & excursions you may regulate. the History
will be my employments – to
that I shall devote myself – relieving labour by the
correction of Madocflares a longer flamethou thy servant depart in peacelet not thou
In my journeys I have literally seen &
noted so much that I say nothing because there is so much to
communicate. you shall see my journals
Frerewarm
place & you will perhaps wonder at the directions to
leave the bung hole open.
We are again distressed by a newspaper
account that my brother Tom has been wounded in the Danish action,Beltona in this action and was
listed as wounded, e.g. in Mars and L’Hercule on 21
April 1798. In fact, Tom Southey did not become a
Captain until 1811.
pray pray do not cag