3387. Robert Southey to [John Wilson Croker], 12 November 1819⁠* 

Keswick. 12 Nov. 1819.

My dear Sir

I trust you will not consider me as acting improperly in addressing myself to you upon a subject on which an official application to the Admiralty has been made twice to no purport.

My brother is required to act as Collector of the Taxes in his parish, or to pay a fine of £20. [1]  He applies to know whether he is not privileged by his commission from serving in any such office; – the first reply which he receives is that their Lordships do not think it necessary to interfere; – the second, that they do not think it their province to advise him upon a point of law.

Now, my dear Sir, this point of law concerns the service. A naval officer may be summoned at upon his duty at any time, – how then can he an office be thrust upon him which requires residence while it lasts, & renders him responsible to the Exchequer if it be not performed? – Is not this a question which implicates the privileges of the navy? & where should those privileges be understood if not at the Admiralty? The common sense of the case is plain. If the point of law be doubtful, how easy is it for the Admiralty to obtain an opinion! And is it not fitting that a point which should be settled, which so long as it remains undetermined exposes their officers to vexation, & places them in a situation wherein they know not how to act, – having on the one hand to compromise the privileges of the service, – or on the other to incur the expences of a law suit?

————

You are likely to have a warm campaign when Parliament meets. [2]  The Opposition will endeavour to make up in violence, what they will lose in numbers. But Government has great advantages at this moment. I should think it prudent not to press the suspension of the H. Corpus, [3]  – the same security may be obtained by other means, & the credit that would be gained by this forbearance would be worth something. The main objects are to prevent seditious meetings, & to curb a licentious press: & the evils of both are so generally acknowledged, that there never was a better <time> for xxxx proposing some effectual remedy. I have reason to believe that one of the most effectual would be supported by some persons not in the habit of acting with Government, – that of making banishment for life the punishment for sedition & blasphemy. [4]  Such a law a few years ago would have rid us of Cobbett & the Examiner. [5]  I believe too that the inconvenience of suffering persons to put off their trial from one Sessions to another, for these offences, (which allows them to go on during the interim in the same course,) is so palpable, & so absurd, that an act for remedying it would be generally approved.

Some good would be done by prohibiting all Sunday newspapers, by means of which the Sabbath is now set apart as a day for administering seditious instruction to the people of London. [6]  Still more would result from repeated prosecutions of the seditious papers. Long impunity has made them incautious. In the month of August I saw a Scotch newspaper containing a paragraph (copied no doubt from some London paper,) in which Ferdinand was accused of having poisoned the late Queen of Spain. [7]  – If I could have procured the paper I would certainly have sent it to the Spanish Embassador. [8]  The original might easily have been traced, & it would have been doing good service to that part of Scotland to have prosecuted the copyer also, who is doing great mischief in that quarter (Montrose.) The M Chronicle of Sept. 21. says speaking of the approbation signified to the Magistrates at Manchester, “The Kings Government has by this approbation declared that it will, whenever it pleases so to do, plunge those arms entrusted to it for the public safety, in the bowels of a peaceful & unoffending people.” – “The Executive have thereby declared that the people of this country hold their lives & properties at the point of the bayonet.” [9]  – Surely such language as this is within reach of the Law. At least that question should be tried, – & if it is not, laws should then be made to reach it.

It is far more agreable just now <in these times> to employ myself in investigating the manners & superstitions of savages, & the history of sectarians, than in busying myself with the politics of the txxxxx day. [10]  And yet I have much to say upon the Prospects of Society [11]  which seems to me worth saying, – thoughts & reflections which if they were sent abroad might produce good hereafter. That this is one of the critical periods of civilized society is beyond all doubt; – & there is great danger of its dissolution. But I am not despondent, & see our way thro the danger, as I did thro the war, if resolution & wisdom are not wanting.

But I ought to apologize as much for the length of this letter, as for the occasion of it. – Excuse both, I pray you, & thereby add to the obligations you have conferred upon x one who is

Yrs very truly

Robert Southey.