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National Library of Wales, MS 4812D. 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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I ought to have told you a week ago that I was once more in England safe & sound. But the continual excitement
& hurry & bustle of this place scarcely allow me time for sleep. Our journey has been very interesting, – the route was thus –
Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, the fields of battle of the 18 & 16th – Namur, Huy, Liege, Spa, Aix la Chapelle, – this the
farthest point. Then Maestricht, Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Courtray, Menin, Ypres, Bergues, Dunkirk & Calais. I kept a
minute journal
The political aspects are as bad as possible. The universal belief is that we let Buonaparte loose from Elba: & the
answer to one who attempts to prove the folly of this supposition – “why did you not put him to death then when you had him in your
hands? If the Devil had called xx all his imps to council to invent a means for confirming this notion he could not have
devised a better than that of this present of house & furniture! The absurdity & unpopularity & indecency of the
thing are felt so strongly that it is stoutly denied at present, – as if it were possible to conceal it when the bill is to be
paid!
We shall remain in & near London some ten or twelve days longer then travel homewards viâ Ludlow
Roderick
I have thought & puzzled myself about your inscription to no purpose, as yet, – but still I hope something will
come of it.