1203. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 19 July 1806 ⁠* 

My dear Wynn

The Cid grows under my hands, & instead of the few sheets abstracted for you, will make two little volumes, which if the pleasure of the work do not greatly deceive me, will be as curious & as interesting as any thing of the kind could be. [1]  I take the original Chronicle, [2]  divide it into books & subdivide into sections at discretion, omit what is not connected with the subject, supply from other sources what x is there omitted, referring at the end of every section to the authorities chapter & verse, & noticing every thing which ought to be noticed even with scrupulous fidelity in the notes, which will be xxxxxx of all kinds, except that nothing has yet tempted me to a joke in them. – not for any want of a propensity on my part, tho you so do not you take it for a symptom of amendment. For the language I have as in Amadis [3]  just followed the original. – I shall sell one edition, get some credit by it, & give a great deal of pleasure to the few persons who have a taste for such things, & whom I shall venture to estimate at 750 buyers.

The Scotch seem to think that Ld Melvilles character is cleared by his acquittal. [4]  We on this side the border are of a very different opinion, & I hear it loudly lamented that the House of Lords should have taken the thing up as a party matter, in contempt & defiance of the plain matter of fact. I have been asked if I have any interest in getting a prisoner exchanged. Whether this can be done or no I know not, – but if there be any kind of silent <silent> exchange going on, as I hear there is, I should be very glad if you could get Lieut. Edward Barker [5]  home, who has been about two years there, having been shipwrecked in his frigate on the coast. I mention this because if it can be done at all it can be done with a word.

You ask me upon what terms I am with John Southeys heir. [6]  He & my mother were not on good terms, & in consequence of this I never had any intercourse with him from 1791 – till four years ago. Then, hearing that he had made enquiries concerning xxxx my youngest brother, I called upon him – & this led to an interchange of dining visits about once in a month or six weeks as long as I was at Bristol. He is below the level of his Peers in society as to information, neither speaking nor writing grammatically, but in every respect a better man to deal with than his brother, whose humour amounted to insanity, in the strict – but not the legal sense of the term. I am on as good terms with him as I can be, – that is, there can be no correspondence between us – except when any family event occurs – & if I were to travel near him I should turn aside to inn at his house. The best circumstance is that his sister will now live with him, who lived with my father during the whole of my childhood, & who indeed is the only one of his family for whom I have any thing like a real family feeling. She I believe loves me well.

I have not seen, nor am I likely to see the new Giraldus. [7] 

Ennerdale Lake [8]  is to be sold, with above 300 acres on its shores. If you know any person who wants to buy a Lake here is a fine opportunity for it will Had John Southeys property devolved to me I would have bought it, built there, & taken root in the valley for life. The land is in bad order & the situation at present will go for nothing – but it is a beautiful place.

If it were you, instead of your Uncle, who were at the head of the Board of Controul, [9]  I would without delay address a memorial to you upon the moral political & religious necessity of converting our Hindoo subjects, & the fitness of a church establishment in Hindostan. – I am in high favour, they tell me, with the Bp. of Llandaff – more probably than I should be with any other Bishop. [10]  Ld G  [11]  was right about the holy days – yet the Bishops might have urged that as some were still to be retained <allowed> it would be more decorous to retain the church festivals & abolish the birth days.

Brougham comes into Parliament I hear next election. [12]  xxx He will be a strong man in the house. I hope his Negro-politics will not be adopted – those of the Crisis of the Sugar Colonies seem to me the sounder. [13]  To acknowledge the Emperor Jean Jacques [14]  would put him in good humour, – to open a trade with him would tempt his people to agricultural & commercial pursuits, & it is only in this way that they can be prevented from becoming a nation of pirates – such as is rising now in the South Sea Islands, where every petty King has a Botany Bay convict for his prime minister! – I have schemes of colonial ambition as extensive as Bonapartes on the continent – with this difference that in mine the means would be good & the end better.

God bless you

RS

Saturday July 19 1806.