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Bodleian Eng. Lett. c. 23. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), II, pp. 311–313 [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.
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First thanking you for what you have done in this business & also for what you did & did not say in the affair of Tom – I proceed.
There is a civil office for the Inspection of Accounts – & I am adequate to be Inspector –, so if you cannot learn
of xxx that there be any thing more proper let that be the thing asked. but – consult Rickman – I have only proceeded on newspaper authority – & if the expedition be not going
to Portugal – would not take the best office any where else. – Actual work I expect, & have seen enough of the last army at Lisbon
to know that Commissaries & xxxx Inspectors have plenty of leisure. – This much General Moore must know,x forces to Portugal <or not,> for it depends
upon his report – if the papers lie not. If we do – the place where all the civil operations are carried on is Lisbon – there the
Commission – xxx xxxxx &c remain if the army takes the field. there I want to go – you know for what purpose. To say
that I do not wish to make money would be talking nonsense – but the mere object of making money would not take me from home. I can
inspect accounts, – I can make contracts – (for beef & xxx oats are soon understood.) – & doing these things can yet
have leisure for my own pursuits. – Rickman perhaps knows more of these things,
what situations there are to which I am competent, & what are the most desirable. show him this & follow his suggestions rather
than mine. What efforts I make are more because the thing is prudent, than agreeable.
Tom is well out of a scrape into which he was got by no fault of his own. if he
scapes the fever the Court Martial was a lucky days work for him.Galatea made an unsuccessful attempt to cut out the French privateer General Ernouf (formerly the British sloop of war Lilly) lying at the Saintes near
Guadeloupe. 65 of the 90 men sent on the mission were killed or wounded. Due to Thomas having been placed under arrest (and
subsequently court-martialled) he was replaced on the raid by Lieutenant Charles Hayman (dates unknown) who died.
Madoc is provokingly delayed. Job once wished that his enemy had written a book. if he himself had printed one it would
have tried his patience.trophée; the palm and cross upon the rock
(after the Table of Contents); and the snake before the cave, intended as the title-page of the second part, ‘Madoc in Aztlan’ but
placed incorrectly (after page 320, instead of after page 184).
It will do me a world of good to see the first proof sheet under favour of the Grand Parleur.
y 20. 1805.