Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 5 May 1791
Dear Sir
The late transactions have been the occasion of great triumph to the sympathisers with the Parisian Aristocrates. They have been very ill timed & may produce disagreeable consequences. I believe there was a plot to carry away the king & I think his insincerity proved beyond doubt. But the worst symptom was the refusal of the militia to obey Fayette, who certainly wd have taken measures to frustrate the intended scheme – things upon the whole are getting more unsettled. I dread the Paris mob. I shd not be surprised if the rest of the kingdom was to protest agt their proceedings or even give rise to a civil war by attempting to chastise them.
If you can find out a dealer in amber & from a qty imported in a rough state pick me out 2 or 3 pieces with bits of wood adhering to them I shd be obliged to you as also if you cd procure me a good chrystal of schoerl as large as your finger.
In about 3 weeks I shall depart from Oxford for a short time and then return & give a short course of lectures on the Nat. history of the earth.
It will be worth your while to procure the report of the committee of council on the corn trade. It contains some most alarming intelligence: & intelligence from such a quarter proves what it states & generally a good deal more. I had no conception that the produce of the country was regularly & in all seasons so considerably below its consumption.
The committee I understand go so far as to say that we must be dependant solely on America for bread. But is it not certain that America will people up to her means of subsistence, especially as she will establish more & more manufactures from time to time. There are some alarming circumstances to liberty in the bill: something like an extension of the excise laws to the corn trade. Pitt & his Parliament bid fair to turn this whole country into one great court of political inquisition. How much will the Nat. Ass. have to answer for not to France only but to mankind, if they shd not establish a good and prosperous government.
T. Beddoes
Address: [the address is heavily deleted and the letter re-addressed in another hand] Davies Giddy Esqr / Mr Hawkins’s / Chandos Street / Cavendish Square / London
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / 1791 / May the 5th
Postmark: MA / 6
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/6