The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to Grosvenor C. Bedford, 26 May 1813
“Tom is made
quite unhappy by these repeated victories of the Americans; and for my own part
I regard them with the deepest and gloomiest forebodings. The superior weight
of metal will not account for all. I heard a day or two ago from a
Liverpoolian, lately in America, that they stuff their wadding with bullets.
This may kill a few more men, but will not explain how it is that our ships are
so soon demolished, not merely disabled. Wordsworth and I agreed in suspecting some improvement in
gunnery (Fulton is likely enough to have
discovered something) before I saw the same supposition thrown out in the
‘Times.’ Still there
would remain something more alarming to be resolved, and that is, how it
happens that we injure them so little? I very much fear that there may be a
dreadful secret ![]()
| 30 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 39. |
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at the bottom, which your fact about the
cartridges* of the Macedonian points at. Do you know,
or does Henry know, a belief in the navy
which I heard from Ponsonby, that the crew of the ——
loaded purposely in this manner, in order that by being made prisoners they
might be delivered from ——’s tyranny? When Coleridge was at Malta, Sir A.
Ball received a round-robin from ——’s crew, many of whom
had served under him, and who addressed him in a manner which made his heart
ache, as he was, of course, compelled to put the paper into ——’s hands.
One day Coleridge was with him when this man’s name
was announced, and turning, he said to him in a low voice, ‘Here comes
one of those men who will one day blow up the British navy.’
“I do not know that the captain of the Macedonian was a tyrant. Peake certainly was not; he is well known here, having married
a cousin of Wordsworth’s; his ship
was in perfect order, and he as brave and able a man as any in the service.
Here it seems that the men behaved well; but in ten minutes the ship was
literally knocked to pieces, her sides fairly staved in; and I think this can
only be explained by some improvements in the manufactory of powder, or in the
manner of loading, &c. But as
* “H. Sharp is just
arrived from Lisbon; he has been in America, where he went on board the
Macedonian and the United States.1 He says the
captured ship was pierced through and through, and full of shot, while
in the American vessel scarcely any have been lodged. Our ship seems to
have been very badly fought; the captors declared that they found many
of the guns with the cartridges put in the wrong way.”—G. C. B. to R.
S., May 24. 1813 1 The name of the vessel that took the Macedonian. |
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| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 31 |
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a general fact, and of tremendous application, I verily
believe that the sailors prefer the enemy’s service to our own. It is in
vain to treat the matter lightly, or seek to conceal from ourselves the extent
of the evil. Our naval superiority is destroyed!
“My chief business in town will be to make
arrangements for supplying the huge deficit which the termination of my labours
in the Register occasions. I wish
to turn to present account my Spanish materials, and still more the insight
which I have acquired into the history of the war in the Peninsula; and to
recast that portion of the Register, carry it on, and bring it forth in a
suitable form. This cannot be done without the consent of the
publishers—Ballantyne,
Longman, and Murray. To the two latter I have written, and
am about to write to James Ballantyne. Should the thing be
brought to bear, I must procure an introduction to Marquis Wellesley,—that is, to the documents which I
doubt not he would very readily supply; and I should have occasion for all the
assistance from the Foreign Office which my friends could obtain. To the
Marquis I have means of access through Mr.
Littleton, and probably, also, via Gifford, through Canning. It may be of use if you make known my wishes in that
quarter.
Sir Alexander John Ball, baronet (1756-1809)
After serving in the Mediterranean under Nelson he was governor of Malta from 1803;
Samuel Taylor Coleridge served as his secretary and wrote a memoir of him in
The Friend.
James Ballantyne (1772-1833)
Edinburgh printer in partnership with his younger brother John; the company failed in the
financial collapse of 1826.
Grosvenor Charles Bedford (1773-1839)
The son of Horace Walpole's correspondent Charles Bedford; he was auditor of the
Exchequer and a friend of Robert Southey who contributed to several of Southey's
publications.
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Robert Fulton (1765-1815)
American engineer and inventor who developed a commercially successful steamboat.
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Edward John Littleton, first baron Hatherton (1791-1863)
The son of Morton Walhouse, educated at Rugby and at Brasenose College, Oxford; he was MP
for Staffordshire (1812-22) and South Staffordshire (1832-35). He was Irish secretary
(1833-34), raised to the peerage in 1835.
Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842)
A leading London publisher whose authors included Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, and
Moore.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
William Peake (d. 1813)
Captain of the Peacock, killed when his ship was sunk by the American corvette Hornet; he
had married Mary Wordsworth, cousin of the poet.
Henry Herbert Southey (1783-1865)
The younger brother of Robert Southey; educated at Edinburgh University, he was physician
to George IV, Gresham Professor of Medicine, and friend of Sir Walter Scott.
Thomas Southey (1777-1838)
The younger brother of Robert Southey; he was a naval captain (1811) and afterwards a
Customs officer. He published
A Chronological History of the West
Indies (1828).
Richard Wellesley, first marquess Wellesley (1760-1842)
The son of Garret Wesley (1735-1781) and elder brother of the Duke of Wellington; he was
Whig MP, Governor-general of Bengal (1797-1805), Foreign Secretary (1809-12), and
Lord-lieutenant of Ireland (1821-28); he was created Marquess Wellesley in 1799.
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.
The Times. (1785-). Founded by John Walter, The Times was edited by Thomas Barnes from 1817 to 1841. In the
romantic era it published much less literary material than its rival dailies, the
Morning Chronicle and the
Morning
Post.
