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. Previously published: Adolfo Cabral (ed.), Robert Southey: Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800–1801 and a Visit to France 1838 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 83–86.
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.
Any dashes occurring in line breaks have been removed.
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Southey’s spelling has not been regularized.
Writing in other hands appearing on these manuscripts has been indicated as such, the content recorded in brackets.
& has been used for the ampersand sign.
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Here then we are. our safe & speedy passage & the alarms which we endured on the way I have detailed to my Mother who will show you the letter & spare me the needless tedium of
telling the same tale again. – I have seen Dr Pitcairn
My Mother will tell you how we are settled. our woman servant comes this
evening. I have not yet seen her. – she has been here, Maria Rosa, so fine! green satin sleeves – pink satin <jacket> body –
powder – muslin petticoat – withall a good looking girl who has lived five years in one place. she is to do every thing except cooking
– & that when Manuel
I have drawn the plan of our apartments in my Mothers letters.
we live in three little rooms, communicating with each other by double doors till this morning when I carried away the gates of
Gaza.r Pitcairns furniture & conveniences – who goes in the next packet. this windfall, with the help of
the carpenter who is to make me some swinging bookshelves, will tolerably set us up.
A mail coach has been lately established to Coimbra – 130 miles on the Porto road, to which place it is to run when the
road is compleated. yes, a Mail Coach that goes eight miles an hour, – drawn by mules. my Uncle has been in it – it is a royal business & will fail from ill management. it
is priced too high – as the fare &c for a single person amounting to as much as his expences in a
chaise by himself. now this excludes the main body of travellers – the inferiour tradesman, those who now travel on mules or horses. –
Paper money also is introduced here – a bad & clumsy business which I do not understand enough as yet to explain. all I know is
this – that the government set the example of discounting it – & that about a fortnight since they paid their sailors in it at par. these men on exchanging the paper found themselves twenty per cent losers, & in consequence a slight
riot ensued & they cried out Liberty & Bonaparte! this was soon quelled & the ringleaders secured. they have not however
been punished. This paper currency has brought forth its usual child – forgery. a German of some respectability & talents, has been
or will be executed for it, in England.
Danvers my meat, my wax candles – my fuel, my bread come from the public purse
of England. my Uncles ratio is very large, & I am very conscientiously
taking my share of the loaves & fishes, – eating out my last income tax, & a little of my
friends. – the country here is delightful – such a sky! every thing in full leaf! – but the green peas are nearly over. – Our visitors
are many of them pleasant – the women I mean – their manners are easy & of that frankness that invites familiarity even from a
reserved stranger. Edith mends in spirits already.
I paid my visits this morning to the Envoyseeing xxx receiving & returning visits –
then I am at pleisure – & at work. I rise at five. this time has been employed in letter writing –
a business laborious from the multitude which I cannot but write at first. Sunday the packet sails & I shall breathe a little. I
will write by the next to Davy – tell him so & remember me to him – tell him I
remember him with the earnestness which he a man feels in a foreign country when he thinks of a friend
at home. if he would but knock space as well as matter out of the Universe, we might meet now.
In the midst of my sickness I thought of Thalaba & quo[MS torn] plan. it will now soon be finished.s.
I was wrong about the Cheese. my Uncle wants some – the mild
toasting sort. my Mother will buy them, & Cottle repay her. pray tell her this, & let them be sent according to the direction
which you have. Captain YescombeKing George.
Of the fleas & muskitoes I say nothing – only Edith was
rather surprized to see me fill the slop bason with the former at first. remember me to Cottle, & to Charles Fox.xx & a very few persons – like the Chapel of Loretto I should have no wandering wishes
Englandward.
I met a Bristol man to day whom I knew in infancy. Stephens of Wine Street