“On inquiring into the causes that guide our actions, I am greatly puzzled to discover the reason why I have not written before to London. Can it be indolence? I have been in other respects very industrious. It cannot be indifference or inattention, for a day has never passed over without my thinking on the subject. Whatever was the cause, such is the fact, which cannot be removed by an inquiry, however long. I will therefore dismiss it at once, and proceed to my purpose.
“I left Hyde Park Corner at five o’clock on the
Sunday. I left you at two. I proceeded some twenty or thirty miles when I was
overtaken by the Southampton mail. I got a four shilling cast on the outside,
and arrived at Southampton, gloriously wet, at ten o’clock on Monday
night. I set off to Cowes the next morning at seven by the mail packet, which
was opposed both by wind and tide, and could make no way. The mail was obliged
to shift to an open boat, and as I could row, I got into the boat, leaving the
rest of the passengers on board. I now pulled against wind and tide for upwards
of twelve miles, without one minute’s rest, and I do not recollect ever
to have undergone so great fatigue before. I arrived at Newport, however, by 3
p.m. on Tuesday, according to my promise, when,
contrary to my expectation, I had nothing to do in the evening’s
entertainment. I have since been on a salary of 10s. a week, and we have had
one idle week between Newport and this place, where we have been three weeks,
and are likely to continue four more. Hence we go immediately to Portsmouth. .
. . I have pursued the plan Mr Holcroft
mentioned as much as possible, consistently with almost continual moving,
| 144 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“I beg you will make a point of showing this to my mother immediately, as I have not written to her since I left town. My love to her and Betty and Miss Godwin. Is Nat at Spithead?
