1566. Robert Southey to William Taylor, 15 [January] 1809 ⁠* 

Keswick. Jan^y [1]  15. 1809.

My dear W^m Taylor

At length I have laid hand on a Prospectus, which I send you rather as a thing worth having, than for any other use; for it was <Coleridge> sent <it> abroad hastily, without consideration on his own part, or consultation with any body else, – & both the how & the when xxxxof publication remain yet to be settled. [2]  My advice to him is not to venture upon any periodical task, because I am quite certain he will never will d be ready in time; – but to publish a half crown or five shilling number [MS torn] whenever he can be ready with one. That something should be done I am very anxious, because if t what there is in Coleridge be not drawn out of him in this way, it will never be drawn out of him at all.

I thank you for De Lery, [3]  which has proved of greater value than I expected, inasmuch as De Bry, [4]  like a right Roman Catholick has omitted the whole chapter relating to Ville-gagnon, [5]  – the main part of the preface, – & most of the parts which expose Thevets ignorance & knavery. [6]  Even from the book thus mutilated I had, by the help of Thuanus, [7]  formed an opinion, which the additional facts thus got at, compleatly verify & establish. My Bayle I fear is xxxxthe first edition, for I can find nothing there upon the subject. [8]  Moreri has something about it, in his usual meagre & wretched way. [9] 

I do not by any means either dispute or xxxx<doubt> that the Caraibes of the French are our Carribs, xxxx– but in De Lery the word is different. [10]  It means there the Tupi [11]  priests, who were Tupis themselves: but it is used improperly both by him & some of the Portugueze writers, for Marcgrave (what is the Dutch orthography of that name?) makes the distinction, & explains Paye to be the Conjurer, Caraiba his power of conjuration. [12] 

The Courier, not the Edinburgh Review, speaks my opinions with respect to Spain. The only political revolution which that country needed took place & ipso facto upon the kidnapping of the royal family, by the establishment of the different Juntas – for Spain has only to recur to its old constitution, long suspended, but never repealed or destroyed, to be a free nation. As for religious reformation – that as you perceive Buonaparte is enacting, – a proof, if proof were needed, that the whole clergy are against him, as well as the whole people. Every thing is to be expected from the Spaniards except what our Ministers choose to expect, that they should at once be able to stand against equal or superior numbers of the French in the field. We should have borne the first brunt, & trained them to be soldiers just as they teach the young skaiters in Holland. – But it would fill a larger sheet than this to point out all the gross blunders which we have committed. Still I am confident that Spain will finally deliver itself, tho it we shall perhaps see it at first over-run, – I am the more confident because in xxx <every> instance xxx my expectations with regard to that country xxx have been verified.

The Grenvilles & Foxites will seperate upon the question of peace. [13]  Canning hankers after the former, & would gladly have them in with him. Neither the King [14]  nor the people will like it; – the King will never be so well pleased as with an administration composed of his menials, for such they are, – & the people dislike the Grenvilles: the Republicans however will be with them against the peacemakers. I have but one opinion & one feeling here, – that the scabbard must be thrown away, & that our whole disposable force should be sent to Spain. The very Quakers admit that peace cannot be wished for upon any other principle than their own. Your admiration of Jeffray is to me quite surprizing. Cobbet may be an honest writer by popularity, because he has gone regularly on from the extreme point of Jacobinism Anti-Jacobinism to the other end of the political scale. [15]  But Jeffray must be a rogue, because he has gone backwards & forwards. Look at the wretched justification of war in the first number, & compare this with the wretched justifications of peace now. [16]  Look at his defence of all existing abuses when the party to whom he had at last attached himself were, as he supposed, safely in, & then judge what credit is due to his democracy when they are out. There was an able article in the Courier some weeks ago, setting him against himself in two parallel columns, & never was pamphleteering tergiversation more decidedly proved. [17] 

Your argument that schools, not churches, ought to be the instrument of conversion, is I believe the only one which I have not entered into in my reviewal of the Baptist Mission & Buchanan controversy. [18]  The schools are the necessary consequence of the mission, – without it they could do little, – for it is not desirable to undermine an old superstition without giving something in its place. This was the error of Voltaire [19]  & the French Anti-Xtians, – had they been content with Socianism, [20]  or what is better with a philosophical Quakerism France would at this day have been xxxxfree, & we should have won that game sixteen years ago, which was lost for us by the union of Atheism with Jacobinism. As for the crazy Calvinism of the Missionaries, I regard that just as you do, & take especial care never to be misunderstood when the subject comes in my way, – but Missionaries must be crazy (according to the common acceptation of the word) or they would not be Missionaries, – & I hold it something worse than craziness to keep out of sight the great qualities connected with their enthusiasm.

No enquiry has yet been made here concerning Mr Bolingbroke. [21]  I am very glad that you are once more got into a review, tho it will not fall in my way to see the Critical, [22]  – this years Annual I fear will seem very flat to me from your default. [23]  My own articles in it were none of them written with much pleasure. they are few in number, & I suspect there is little reason to wish there had been more of them, unless the books had been better, – for unlike you, I stick to my text, & if that is not a lucky one, the discourse is not likely to make amends for its defects. Perhaps it is bad policy in Longman not to pay such a price as to make exertion incumbent, & enable his authors always to afford it.

God bless you

R Southey.