Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, [c. 20 June 1792]
Tuesday night
Dear Giddy
I had some hopes of receiving an answer to one of the queries, I believe the only one, contained in the letter I sent you by Millet. The query however was not of any consequence to you or to me. I am much afraid that Strange will not be able to travel into Cornwall this summer – & I conceive it will be some loss to you to miss his conversation. I send the French Justice of Peace & all the papers I have belonging to Reynolds. You will very speedily have an opportunity of returning them by Sadler, who is going into Cornwall to negotiate with Sr F. Basset about his engine. He assures me that it has been found at 27 to 10, compared with that of Watt. Does this piece of information make you stare or laugh? I have lately received 3 or 4 letters from Reynolds, but he says not a word of this engine. The only particular fact I have to oppose to the probability of Sadler’s deceiving himself is that he tells me, one of his Engines is now erecting with a 6 inch cylinder for winding coal. He has not executed the plan sent to you; but I suppose has approximated towards it. He has made a real improvement in the boiler, which I believe has hitherto been a very expensive part of the machinery. He will shew it to you, for I desired him to call upon you; not knowing how near you live to B., he had no idea of enquiring, & may possibly, in the tumult of his thoughts, still forget: for he is, at this moment, agitated by a scheme, totally dissimilar to any of them, in which he has heretofore engaged. You will allow that you never cd have guessed it, when I informed you that he meditated no less a design that to gratify old Kien Long & his train of mandarins with an atmospherical excursion & for this purpose he has already bespoke 600 yards of silk. He is to bear the title of Engineer in the Embassy; he has just passed through Oxford on his way from London. He went with Sir G. Staunton & the Chinese from Italy to Ranelagh: his resolution seems at present to be fixed & he is of opinion that if he leaves the £30,000 which Sr F. B. or some body else is to give for his engine, with his wife & children, that they will have no great cause to complain.
The internal affairs of France now seem to be in a worse condition that the external. You have I dare say often lamented that the patriotic associations had not dissolved away in the mass of the nation before this time. Whether their leaders harbour the idea of a new revolution, or the impotance of the laws renders them necessary, these combinations must be considered as a great evil or the sign of a great evil. Fayette has just sent a letter to the Nat. Assembly, of which you will hear a great deal; & I am sorry that I cannot send you the paper containing it; but that paper is not at my disposal. He expresses himself with great warmth against the Jacobin club & the late Jacobin ministry, who I fear have disappointed the expectations formed of them. He more than insinuates that the ministry <designed> to plunge his army in certain destruction, or acted as if they did. I have been very much accustomed to hear opinions unfavourable to one part of Fayette’s character, but I really begin to hope that his talents are equal to his virtues. His carriage during the whole of the revolution, the late conduct of his army, indeed its whole conduct so far, & the letter which I hope you will see, depose strongly in his favour – I cannot think of the untimely end of Gouvion without a very lively wish that some body cd tell me
How sleep the Brave, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest?
There Honour comes, a Pilgrim grey,
To bless the just, that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping Hermit there;
Mrs Gouvion will doubtless enjoy all that Collins’s weak poetry promises
But if this be all, then the Author of this motley world has doomed the best of men to act the most absurd of farces; yet even so, probably Gouvion wd choose the same part, if he had to choose again. – In the tumultuous debate respecting the admission of the soldiers who had fired on the Natl Guards at Nancy, he spoke vehemently agt it; & mentioning the merits & the death of his brother (who was killed in endeavouring to stop the effusion of blood), he was insolently & unfeelingly answered by one of the mad Jacobins. G. did what I wish he had not done, though one cannot much blame him – he challenged & shot his answerer, then resigned his seat & joined his old fellow soldier, Fayette –
The newspapers have announced the death of Mrs Day. I congratulate myself on having had a slight acquaintance with a lady, who was most certainly destroyed by sorrow for the death of her husband. Before I saw her, Keir had told me that she was still much more affected by her loss than any person in her circumstances <ever> ought to be? This information, coming from so respectable a quarter – very much increased my curiosity to see her, & he promised to send me word when she came to his house. I never met with a person of superior sense, though she was evidently broken. He agreed [there follow two deleted lines] Considering on the one hand that only persons of powerful understandings are capable of very strong affections, & on the other that Day was one of those strongly-marked characters that are doomed to be detested or adored by all who approach them nearly, I am the less surprised at a phænomenon, which I do not desire to see repeated.
Miss Grosvenor is at last returned to Oxford. In spite of my neighbour I shall believe that she has a much stronger head than Mrs D or Mrs J. But has she that instinctive discretion, which tells you when you have said enough? If you are inclined to answer this question in the affirmative, I shall believe what I have heard seriously affirmed, but what nothing <else> wd have induced me to suspect.
T. Beddoes
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/17