Material from the Romantic Circles Website may not be downloaded, reproduced or disseminated in any manner without authorization unless it is for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and/or classroom use as provided by the Copyright Act of 1976, as amended.
Unless otherwise noted, all Pages and Resources mounted on Romantic Circles are copyrighted by the author/editor and may be shared only in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Except as expressly permitted by this statement, redistribution or republication in any medium requires express prior written consent from the author/editors and advance notification of Romantic Circles. Any requests for authorization should be forwarded to Romantic Circles:>
By their use of these texts and images, users agree to the following conditions:
Users are not permitted to download these texts and images in order to mount them on their own servers. It is not in our interest or that of our users to have uncontrolled subsets of our holdings available elsewhere on the Internet. We make corrections and additions to our edited resources on a continual basis, and we want the most current text to be the only one generally available to all Internet users. Institutions can, of course, make a link to the copies at Romantic Circles, subject to our conditions of use.
British Library, Add MS 30927. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849-1850), II, pp. 207-209 [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.
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
All other characters, those with accents, non-breaking spaces, etc., have been encoded in HTML entity decimals.
Huzza! huzza! huzza! the bottle is a good post & the Atlantic delivers letters according to direction!
Yours of May 23. 1802. Lat. 33. 46 N.
Long. 64. 27. W –
was found by Messrs Calmer & Seymour of St Salvadors.
Lat. 23. 30 N.
Long. 73. 30 W.
very civilly inclosed by some Mr – Aley Pratty
10, sent per Betsey Cains.Betsy Cains was one of the oldest merchant ships
still in service. Reputed to have arrived in England in 1688, she had been
employed in the West India trade since the 1770s.t Wilmott,Betsy Cains in 1803.
You had sealed it so clumsily that some of the writing is torn – & the salt water had got at it, so that the Letter is in a ruinous state – but by the Lord it shall be preserved as the greatest curiosity in my collection.
I shall send the account to Stuart.
I did heartily regret that you were not here. we would have drawn
a cork in honour of Messrs Calmer & Seymour & Aley
Pratt, who by keeping the letter two months really seem to have been sensible
that the experiment was of value. When I consider the quadrillion chances
against such a circumstance it seems like a dream. the middle of the Atlantic –
thrown in there! cast on a corner of St Salvadores & now
here at No 12 St Jamess Place Kingsdown Bristol – hunting me thro
the ocean to the Bahamas & then to this very individual spot. Oh that the
Bottle had kept a log-book! What if the Bottle
Conjurer had been in it now.
I think this letter decisive of a current, chance winds would never have carried it 600 miles in less than seven months. & if I recollect aright, by theory there ought to be a current in that direction. Supposing the bottle to have been found the very day it landed it must have sailed at the rate of three knots in a day & night – it was picked up 209 days after the Post set off. More letters should be thrown overboard about the same latitude, & then when we have charts of all the currents some dozen centuries hence that particular one shall be called Southeys current.
As I shall send our names with the account it will get copied into all the newspapers & may perhaps set others upon making the same experiment
I have half a mind to send a letter to St
Pierre
The news is all pacific
Is there any thing more to be inserted in the Kingsdown gazette? – oh – I have
altered & adapted the fifth commandmentthe a summary
of morals for her present age – Thou shalt not piddle thy father. this & my
three Cat-Commandments I think entitle me to a high rank among moralists
hereafter.
Write – for I am uneasy about the Amsterdam menthey were at Amsterdam! damn-em! damn-em! you know the
song & they suit the burden very unhappily –
Ediths love & remembrance from
Charles. poor fellow when he
saw your bottle-letter he saw how it would have pleased his mother. every thing reminds him of
her – I
I I also miss her. God bless you