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Huntington Library, RS 203. Previously published: Charles Cuthbert Southey (ed.), Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, 6 vols (London, 1849–1850), IV, pp. 28–29 [in part; dated March 1813].Dating note: this letter is a reply to John Rickman to Southey, 12 March 1813 and 13 March 1813 and was probably written before Southey to John Rickman, [18 March 1813], Letter 2233.
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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You & I shall agree about general education. Ignorance is no preventative in these days, if indeed it ever were one
which could be relied on. All who have ears can hear sedition, & the more ignorant they are the more easy is it to inflame them. My
plan is (I know not whether Gifford has ventured to give it) to make
transportation a punishment for seditious-libelling – This & this only would be an effectual cure. The existence of any
Government & that a press in the state which ours is in, is incompatible with the security of any Government.
About the Manufacturing system as affecting the poor rates, doubtless you are best informed. My argument went to show
that the system produced (xxx that xx when under certain circumstances of not unfrequent occurrence, manufactures
occasioned a sudden increase of the craving mouths, – & that the whole previous discipline of these persons fitted them
to become Luddites.did never thought of making till your letter made me see the necessity for so doing. – Concerning the
Poor-Laws I confess myself altogether incompetent to say anything.
You give me comfort about the Catholic<s> question & strengthen my doubts about the E. India
Company question.What
Mr Perceval should have done was to have given the Catholics what
it is fit & proper that they should have, by a Bill originating with himself. What but ruin can be expected when a Government comes
to capitulate with the factious part of the <its> subjects!
I am labouring hard that I may reach London by the beginning of May. At any rate I shall either come while
before Mrs R. becomes invisible – or remain in the neighbourhood till that
eclipse is over. You know I have a bed at the Doctors now, which I must
occupy during a part of my stay.
Tell Little Anne
Bedford will deliver you the most material reply which R. Lovell requires.
Our best wishes to Mrs R.