The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey
Robert Southey to John Rickman, 18 May 1812
“The fate of poor Perceval has made me quite unhappy ever since I heard of it,
not merely from the shock and the private misery which it is quite impossible
to put out of mind, but from the whole train of evils to which this is but the
beginning. I would fain have believed the report that Mr. Abbott was to take his place in the House of Commons,
because, if he could have found tongue, I knew where whatever else might have
been wanting was to be found. But it was not likely that he should quit a
better situation for one of so much anxiety and labour.
W—— and C——, I doubt not, ratted
upon the Catholic question because they expected the Prince upon that ground
would eject Perceval, and then they should have a better
chance than the Early Friends. If they come in, as I
fear they will, we may have the war carried on, but we shall have Catholic
concessions, after which the Church property is not worth seven years’
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the tithes; and the next step
will be to put up the Establishment to sale in the way of contracts; the minds
of the people (which, God knows, need no further poison) will then be totally
unsettled, and the ship will part from her last cable on a lee shore in the
height of the storm. At this moment the army is the single plank between us and
destruction; and I believe the only thing doubtful is whether we shall have a
military despotism before we go through the horrors of a
bellum servile, or after it. This I am certain of, that nothing but an
immediate suspension of the liberty of debate and the liberty of the press can
preserve us. Were I minister, I would instantly suspend the Habeas Corpus, and
have every Jacobin journalist confined, so that it should not be possible for
them to continue their treasonable vocation. There they should stay till it
would be safe to let them out, which it might be in some seven years. I would
clear the gallery whenever one of the agitators rose to speak, and if the
speech were printed, I would teach him that his privilege of attempting to
excite rebellion did not extend beyond the walls of Parliament; that he might
talk treason to those walls as long as he pleased, but that if he printed
treason he was then answerable to the vengeance of his country. I did not
forget* the main question about reading. One
* “What shall I say of the unhappy event
which has happened here? I expected Mr.
Perceval to be murdered; but I had expected it from
the Burdettites and others rendered infuriate by the poison they
imbibe from sixteen newspapers, emulous in violence and mischief.
In reading your little
book about Lancaster, I do not find that you discuss the main
question, whether the mob can be conveniently taught reading while
the liberty of the press exists as at present. Every one who reads
at all reads a Sunday newspaper, not the
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| Ætat. 38. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 343 |
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mouth suffices for a dozen or a score pair of ears in
the tap-rooms and pot-houses, where Cobbett and Hunt are read
as the evangelists of the populace. There is no way of securing the people
against this sort of poison but by the old receipt of
Mithridates,—dieting them from their childhood
with antidotes, and making them as ready to die for their church and state as
the Spaniards. We are beginning to attempt this when it is too late. A judicial
fatuity seems to have been sent among us. Romanists, sectarians of every kind,
your liberality men, and your philosophers of every kind and of every degree of
folly and emptiness, are united for the blessed purpose of plucking up old
principles by the roots, each for their own separate ends, but all sure of
meeting with the same end if they are successful. We who see this danger have
no power to prevent it, and they who have the power cannot be made to see it. .
. . .
“This is a melancholy strain. We must, however, work
the ship till it sinks; and a vigorous minister might take advantage of the
feelings of the sound part of the country at the moment, and the avowal which
the Burdettites have made for strong measures of prevention. . . . . I would
give the poor gratuitous education in parochial schools,—a boon which all
among them who care for their children would rightly estimate; and if the work
of coercion kept pace with that of conciliation, we
Bible; and if any man before doubted the efficacy of
that prescription, the behaviour of the mob upon Mr. P.’s death may teach them
better knowledge.”—J.
R. to R. S., May 16. 1812.
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might hold on till our battle in Spain ended in the
overthrow of the enemy. But where is the dictator who is to save the
commonwealth? Perceval had a character
which was worth as much as his talents. The only statesman who has these
advantages in any approaching degree is Lord
Sidmouth, but he wants those abilities which in Perceval seemed always to grow according to
the measure of the occasion. Yet he would be the best head of a ministry, for
the weight which his good intentions would give him. Vansittart would do for Chancellor of Exchequer, if there were
any other efficient minister in the Commons.
“I am going to write upon the French Revolution for the Quarterly Review,—a well-timed subject: the
evil is, that it is writing to those readers who are in the main of the same
way of thinking. Our contemporaries read, not in the hope of being instructed,
but to have their own opinions flattered.
Charles Abbot, first baron Colchester (1757-1829)
Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, he was Tory MP for Helston in Cornwall
(1795) and Speaker of the House of Commons (1802-16).
Henry Hunt [Orator Hunt] (1773-1835)
Political radical and popular agitator who took part in the Spa Fields meeting of 1816;
he was MP for Preston (1830-33).
Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838)
Founder of the Lancastrian system of education; he published
Improvements in Education (1803).
Spencer Perceval (1762-1812)
English statesman; chancellor of the exchequer (1807), succeeded the Duke of Portland as
prime minister (1809); he was assassinated in the House of Commons.
John Rickman (1771-1840)
Educated at Magdalen Hall and Lincoln College, Oxford, he was statistician and clerk to
the House of Commons and an early friend of Charles Lamb and Robert Southey.
Nicholas Vansittart, first Baron Bexley (1766-1851)
Educated at Christ Church, Oxford, he was a Pittite MP for Hastings (1796-1802), Old
Sarum (1802-12), East Grinstead (1812), and Harwich (1812-23); he was Chancellor of the
exchequer (1812-23).
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
