Thomas Beddoes to T. G. Estcourt, [after 22 October 1808]
My dear Sir
I told yr father what Mr Curwen county by county in a letter & Ld Sinclair by word of mouth told me of the failure of wheat – not ¼ of a crop – in a vast part of Gr. Br. I really have not strength to copy Mr C’s melancholy detail That you may see the recorded glories of a royal D. I ordered a Bl paper to be sent you I envy not poor Pennington his ceremonies or his 360£ – But I am stoic enough to think that if Alfred or William III were now among us in the room of a Prince R., a banquetry & a ball-room wd be more loathsome to them than a charnel house – If they know not him who they have to deal with, they are in the result conspiring against themselves. He stumbled over & played our game, but unlike our great men who when they stumbled always pushed blindly on & always played his game, he rallied his vast diabolical powers, formed a scheme reaching from one end of Europe to the other & now we have to see how his reculer pour sauter mieux is to operate – Most certain G.B. is in jeopardy in Spain nearly as much as I have
MS: Gloucestershire Archives D1571 F227