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Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Not previously published.
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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By some accident, which is a very unusual one
with me, your last letter was mislaid, & this vexed me
when I wished to answer it. I remember however a very
friendly invitation, for which we thank you now, & by of which we hope one day
to avail ourselves when Margaret shall be grown big enough to be a play
fellow for your little girl.
When last I wrote we were in treaty for a
house in Walesnever since
then I have been on the look out & hitherto without
success. we have now a house in view about three miles from
Bristol, a spot with some inconveniences, but some
advantages also, & great beauty of situation.
Have you received the copy of Chattertonsubscribers
copies, else the benefit will not be Mrs Newtons.
The books &c that you may still be
troubled with of mine have the goodness to direct here,
& they will then travel with the rest of my lumber in
one embarkation to my place of rest – wherever that may be.
In about three months time, calculating by my printers speed
I also shall have some books to send you – a version of
Amadis of Gaul;xx you
some specimens, with which I feel confident you would be
pleased.
Colonel Despardsx had been talking treason
than conspiring, prating about what might or could be, not
plotting what should be, playing with a
halter till he was caught in the noose. I wish he had been
spared, because tho his former offerings services were no fair plea for pardon
upon such an occasion, his former sufferings were:
oppression maketh a wise man mad, & it should have been
remembered that Colonel Despard had been the most oppressed
man in his Majestys dominions. his pardon would have given
administration a character for clemency which is always
advantageous. however to their credit they saw none of that
wanton cruelty in the whole proceedings which the old
ministry eternally exercised. Portland & Grenville &
Pitt
In spite of Sebastianisalmost all the sacrifice of
almost all my candle light hours this winter. I am
trespassing now & sparing them by this straggling hand –
yet still they smart & itch & warn me of my
imprudence. Edith & Tom desire to be remembered. remember me also to
your mother & Mr Coleman