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National Library of Wales, MS 4811D. Previously published: Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 173-175.
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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Your letter by a very unlucky accident did
not reach me till the Packet which brought it was under
weigh for the return – an hour earlier & I might have
answerd it – a day earlier & I would have taken my
departure. since then we have lost a packet. I return in the
next which would have sailed on Sunday if Frere
I am only afraid the situation you
mention
We are within a hundred miles of the seat of
war40 reas – 480
have been offered in the camp, & by the last account it
sold for 240. the soldiers have been
sixty hours without bread. now they have half a loaf a day –
which is about half a breakfast – & their allowance of
rice is diminished in consideration. the old Dukethe
men & women of rank set the example of first putting his
heel against each eye & then kissing it. yesterday I
went to see this ceremony. no doubt is entertained here that
peace must be made by the expulsion of the English, still a
heavy calamity to the settlers, tho much of the property has
been removed. the prospect for the inhabitants is dismal.
Alentejo their corn-country is the seat of war & famine
appears inevitable. the English families begin to move &
some of the merchants are sending away their fam wives & children,
that they may be the less embarrassed at last. I should like
to have staid to “see de fun.” – the conduct of the court
towards the Galegos
June 14 Saturday. The armed vessel sails this
morning instead of tomorrow & I have the news so late
that I doubt whether this will be in time. it will carry the
news of peace.
Will you be good enough – as I have no possible time – to
write a line to Danvers telling him I come by the next
packet. we go to his mothers house immediately &
therefore he should be apprized. 9. St Jamess Place Kingsdown
Bristol –