Editor’s NoteEditor’s Note1371To Reginald Pole Carew17 September 1798 (Aet 50)

Hendon, Middlesex 17th Sept. 1798. Monday

Experiment 2d. Quit Antony a week earlier than you would otherwise— Plant, as before, your amiable incumbrances at their Father and Grandfather's—Come and abscond with me at this my absconding-place. Non-redemption System shall be the Order of the Day, and the Sole Order of the Day, the whole time. The 140 pages² shall be discussed, paragraph by paragraph, with all their relations and dependencies— Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.³ We will take a conjunct survey of the whole field of Political Economy: for nothing less is necessary in order to determine, en connoissance de cause, whether stet or dele shall respectively be affixed to the aforesaid paragraphs. We will take a joint observation of the signs of financial futurity.—It will be the first week of your life that you will have applied yourself, without interruption, to the sort of business which God Almighty and your Ancestors have joined in qualifying you for, and the Electors of I don't know what place⁴ have made your duty: and, the ice being broke, I think it will not be the last. The instruction you yourself have reaped from your own Papers (for there is no learning well without teaching), will, whether you suffer the world to be the better for them or no, have afforded you rich payment for your trouble.

Your Order dated the 10th⁵ came in due course. The day after I had pg 83received it, on sending for the Proofs,⁶ I was surprized, but not unacceptably, by receiving along with them—No—this was not the case. My Brother, brought me or sent me Reports 23d, 24th and 25th, saying they came from you, and then came my surprize, for you had never (that I recollect) ever given me reason to expect any such thing. It was upon sending for the Proofs, that I received along with them, the 26th and 27th, directly from your House. Is this Grant or Bailment?—Quaere […?] Would Trover⁷ lie?—Semble al contrary. However, if you deny the Grant, and claim back the goods, I will not seek to rebut you by summum jus.—You will not find it so easy to deal with Colquhoun. It has all along been running in his head that somehow or other he was to have a Copy of the 28th. T'other day I explained to him distinctly what I had collected from you, shewing how it was, that neither he nor I could have any such thing—that your Copies as well as Abbot's and every body else's, of the preceding Numbers, had gone to so many determinate persons, who thence must have been led to expect the succeeding ones, as of course, and that the Law of Honor, like the Law of the Land, after having given a man a thing, would not turn ⟨abou⟩t upon him, and 'pluck it out of him' again. This, having gone in one ear, went out again at the other: whereupon, as if he had borrowed earwax from the deaf Adder,⁸ he still kept harping on the same string. Since then comes a letter from him,⁹ more about that than any thing else, of which letter, to save penmanship, I send the original; but pray return it me by return of post, forasmuch as I am in want of one passage in it, for a particular purpose. To quiet him and save my own throat, I said to him in answer that I could not see how it was possible either of us should have a copy, but if I had one, and he none, mine should be his, and that in the mean time I would write to you about it.

Yesterday (Sunday 16th) and not before, the last of the two parcels of Proof was returned to the Printers. The delay, if such you deem it, happened thus. The date of your Letter was the 8th¹⁰ (Monday). Wednesday evening on my return from Town, I found it on my Table. Thursday morning I sent my Youth for the Proofs. Having to walk and to go farther, he did not return till 6, and then after dining I could not find time to revise and correct the whole consisting of 11 sheets, whereof 6 of C.'s,¹¹ full of false concords, pg 84with passages, some unguarded, others that I could not make head or tail of. On Saturday morning early I sent him the whole, desiring him to forward immediately the 5 sheets in which I alone was concerned, the corrections I had made in his being in pencil with explanatory notes. Instead of putting in ink such, and such only, as he chose should stand, and then sending the sheets off immediately to the Printer's, as I desired him, he sends them back by my Messenger for me to put in ink. This was my amusement Saturday Evening and part of Sunday morning. Sunday (yesterday) afternoon I sent them by a trusty hand, to the Printer's. This morning comes a letter¹² from C. written yesterday, inclosing one dated the day before from Hansard¹³ in haec Verba. 'We shall be glad to receive the remaining Sheets as soon as possible, this Report being much enquired after.' C. expresses himself much puzzled to think how Hansard should have found him out—It must have been by ratiocination.

Now what has all this rigmarolle been for?—Why, for the purpose of giving authenticity to the intelligence conveyd by the words which I have underlined.

I seem to be got into a sort of a half scrape with C. who, after chewing the cud upon it, seems to hone after his false concords, and his weak places, and his unintelligibles, though he had desired me over and over again to weed them out, in black and white as well as viva voce and as well after he had seen what I had said and done about them as before. But he is a very worthy as well as able man, and though he may look upon me as a busy-body and an impertinent, and a pseudo-critic, and himself as an injured man and a fine writer, he will forgive me. As far as I have observed or felt, we authors love to be criticized, and are ready to give carte blanche—but it ⟨is⟩ upon condition that every thing be found to be as it should be. What do you think of a 'friendly Center Point'?—By and by we shall have generous triangles, and condescend⟨ing⟩ parallellipidons.

You are a man of honour—and eke of generosity—Don't betray me to Mrs P.C.¹⁴ I mean the first part of these presents—She would be ready to tear my eyes out; wherefore I will not sign my name that I may disavow what is to be disavowed.