1793

Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 7 April 1793

Oxford Sunday 7 April 1793 - direct to No l1 Hope Square Bristol Hotwells if you write in a month – if not, you shall hear from me again –

Dear Giddy

You will no doubt have wondered at my apparent neglect in so long delaying an answer to your last letter; it is even very possible that you may have written another & I not have received it. The last which came to my hands was dated during your expedition ag^t the rioters. – I for my own part am about to take a long farewell of this seat of the Muses. Last summer I had given the V Chan^r notice that I sh^d resign after one other course of lectures, which I felt considerable reluctance at the thought of reading. My political sentiments & the manner in which I expressed them saved me from all embarrassment. Adams some months ago informed me that I sh^d have no hearers & that probably I sh^d feel my residence here very uncomfortable. He suggested a wish that I sh^d then resign as he had some reason to believe that Stacy w^d be appointed. I immediately wrote to the V. Chanc^r signifying my intention to follow Adams’ advice & desiring him to fix on a successor, at the same time adding that it w^d be extremely inconvenient to me to give up the C lab^y at that moment. Dr Bourne was appointed, & I am now going through the tedious process of packing up some of my things & transferring the rest to him. I own to you that I expected find strong marks of aversion in the <looks &> conduct of the clergy here. I was anxious that I had no title to their kindness – Except however in Smith, who w^d scarce speak to me, I have remarked an unusual forwardness of civility in the rest of my acquaintances. It can be no wonder that men’s exterior sh^d become more smooth as their alarms subside; yet it feels to me as a mark of the increased liberality of the age.

I was in London lately but did not see J. Hawkins I met with an old Scotch acquaintance with whom he was treating to accompany him in his oriental tour: he cd not have found in the three kingdoms a young man better qualified for the expedition. When Hawkins & he had almost agreed upon terms, Sibthorpe arrived & insisted that Leslie sh^d not accompany them to the tops of the hills nor publish any obs^ns of his own – Leslie not being in a situation absolutely dependant rejected the proposal with disdain; & so they parted. The public has certainly in consequence been deprived of much information –

I took up early an unfavourable opinion of the late French Convention. In all great emergencies they seemed to me to act with extravagant folly; it appeared as if they thought that they c^d subdue the earth by decrees of fraternization; hence they utterly neglected the recruiting of their armies, & instead of making a bulwark of the Belgians by conciliating their minds, they have managed so that the return of their old oppressors is felt as a deliverance. And so the farce is over – I am impatient to understand, better than the present acc^ts enable me to do, the part played by the principal actor, Dumouriez – Henceforward I shall perforce hold it vain to reflect upon the civil & political relations among men; & not an old woman of either sex whom I shall not readily allow to be a greater proficient in this science than your friend

T. Beddoes

will leave your father’s Basnage & Michaelas dissertation with Adams

Smith goes abroad & is to have 2000 guineas besides his expences

Address: To Davies Giddy Esq / Tredrea / Marazion / Cornwall
Endorsement: Dr Beddoes / 1793 / April the 7^th / Rec^d April 11 DG
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/2