Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth 21 March 1805
[Dated at end: March 21, 1805.]
DEAR Wordsworth, upon the receipt of your last letter before that
which I have just received, I wrote myself to Gilpin putting your questions to him; but have yet had no
answer. I at the same time got a person in the India House to write a much
fuller enquiry to a relative of his who was saved, one
Yates a midshipman. Both these officers (and indeed
pretty nearly all that are left) have got appointed to other ships and have
joined them. Gilpin is in the Comet, India-man, now lying
at Gravesend. Neither Yates nor
Gilpin have yet answered, but I am in daily
expectation. I have sent your letter of this morning also to
Gilpin. The waiting for these answers has been my
reason for not writing you. I have made very particular enquiries about
Webber, but in vain. He was a common seaman (not the
ship’s carpenter) and no traces ![]()
| 1805 | VI.THE WRECK AGAIN | 307 |
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of him are at the I. House: it is most probable
that he has entered in some Privateer, as most of the crew have done. I will
keep the £1 note till you find out something I can do with it. I now write
idly, having nothing to send: but I cannot bear that you should think I have
quite neglected your commission. My letter to G. was such
as I thought he could not but answer: but he may be busy. The letter to
Yates I hope I can promise will be answered. One
thing, namely why the other ships sent no assistance, I have learn’d from
a person on board one of them: the firing was never once heard, owing to the
very stormy night, and no tidings came to them till next morning. The sea was
quite high enough to have thrown out the most expert swimmer, and might not
your brother have received some blow in the shock, which disabled him? We are
glad to hear poor Dorothy is a little
better. None of you are able to bear such a stroke. To people oppressed with
feeling, the loss of a good-humoured happy man that has been friendly with
them, if he were no brother, is bad enough. But you must cultivate his spirits,
as a legacy: and believe that such as he cannot be lost. He was a chearful
soul! God bless you. Mary’s love
always.
C. Lamb.
21st March, 1805.
Thomas Gilpin (1781 c.-1805 fl.)
The fourth mate on the Abergavenny who survived the wreck.
Mary Anne Lamb (1764-1847)
Sister of Charles Lamb with whom she wrote Tales from Shakespeare (1807). She lived with
her brother, having killed their mother in a temporary fit of insanity.
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855)
The sister of William Wordsworth who transcribed his poems and kept his house; her
journals and letters were belatedly published after her death.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
