Henry Crabb Robinson, 5 Essex Court, Temple, to Mary Hays, [at W. Pennington’s Esq., Dowry Square, Hot Wells, Bristol], 27 February 1815.1 5 Essex Cot Temple 27th Feby 1815 – My dear friend, I am both sorry and ashamed by remarking the date of your interesting letter. I put it by, not considering that it required an immediate answer, And after a considerable delay, sharing your anxiety concerning Mrs Fenwick, I was unwilling to write till I should know your mind was at rest on the subject. Not long since I forwarded her letter to you, And I trust that the contents did not diminish the satisfaction which the mere superscription gave you. I have been since I forwarded that letter, very much engaged. And now to turn to your own letter to me: You will believe that I read
it with interest. I am sorry that interest was painful. Yet I do not mean to
expatiate on the subject at large, And I do not suppose you will expect me to
do so. There is a satisfaction in pouring forth our pains, as well as
pleasures, when we are assured they will excite a friendly Sympathy, tho’ the
affliction is what no counsel can assist in relieving, nor any representations
of mere understanding materially diminish. I know not whether it will be any
great consolation to you to be assured, that the mortifications to which you
have been exposed have their source in a cause you do not & can not wish
removed, And that they are such as feeling minds have ever endured from those
who have less sensibility than themselves. Your last trouble has arisen from an error into
which you have been falling all your life, & are destined to fall as long
as you live – And this error resembles certain optical illusions into which the sense falls, even when the intellect is undeceived. The error is one into
which we fall, precisely in proportion I spent five weeks at Paris. I did not suffer, while there, an hour’s
Ennuie. I did not, on I saw twice the venerable Lafayette4 – he confirmed Miss Williams statement &
declared that all the better people in France abhorred the Emperor – There is
no party for him, said Lafayette,
but certainly many individuals, all who administer to the vicious extravagance
of a court, all who look to the violence of a military tyranny for means of
pillage – Lafayette is not looked on by the Court with a friendly eye yet he
[paper torn] expressed the most favorable opinion of the probab[le] [success]
of the last revolution. He believes that the King has no desire to make himself
a despot, and that he could not succeed if he tried. He has [said] that if
attempts were made to persecute the original revolutionists, they would fail.
The tribunals would not concur &c. It will give you pleasure to
hear this from such authority – As to the permanence of the present government,
my opinion is, – tho’ I confess it to be worth nothing – that it is not in
danger – With a little prudence I think the sceptre of Louis as easy to wield
as that of any other Sovereign5 – I may err in this, And men who have seen more
& had better means of judging think differently. I do not think that the language
held in France abo.t Buon: & against the Court evidence of a wish
to revolt and produce a civil war – The heads of the army, all the public
authorities & all the proprietors, with the great body of the people are uninterested in maintaining the govermt. Indeed what body, Of Politics in general I do not think so much as I used to do – Not that I care less about such things but because I feel more strongly the inutility of self-tormenting. I am disgusted with the proceedings of the Allied Sovereigns at Vienna, but do not think the dethronement of the K. of Saxony either unjust or impolitic – I am alarmed by the Corn bill, or rather by an apprehension which that problematical measure confirms, that England is destined, having survived the shock of War, to sink under her financial embarrassments[.] I am persuaded that England must decline – And how naturally does a decline lead to a fall[.] I have no faith either in the wisdom or economy of government which
alone could retrieve, or in the long continuance of peace which alone can allow
the sinking fund to continue it’s operations. Our foreign trade must decline
when other European nations become our rivals as manufacturers And our With Service Esteem Regard Your friend H. C. Robinson
Address: Mrs M. Hayes 1 Crabb Robinson Archive, HCR/Bundle 6/XIII (a.), Dr. Williams's Library, London; Brooks, Correspondence 576-79. 2 Helen Maria Williams (1762-1827) published several poems in the 1780s while living in London, where she had come under the influence of Dr. Andrew Kippis (1725-95), a prominent Dissenting minister. She moved to Paris in 1788, and, except for a brief return to England in 1792, remained in France and Europe the rest of her life, making a name for herself as a political writer. Her Letters written in France (1790-96) brought her considerable attention by providing English readers with a sympathetic eyewitness account of the French Revolution (Flower published an excerpt from the Letters in the Intelligencer, 4 January 1794). During her stay in Paris in the 1790s she became intimate with John Hurford Stone, who came to France shortly after the Revolution. Though a married man, he accompanied Williams’s on her travels in Switzerland in late 1794; at that time, she had been forced to flee France for fear of reprisals upon her by Robespierre (she would later record this experience in her Tour of Switzerland [1798]). J. H. Stone was accused of treason and tried in absentia in 1798. He and Williams would live together until his death in 1818. 3 Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829), noted chemist, began his career at the Pneumatic Institution in Clifton, near Bristol, under Thomas Beddoes, before achieving considerable fame in London at the Royal Institution. 4 The Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) was a French aristocrat and military officer who gained considerable fame during the American Revolution and during the French Revolution, although by the time of Napoleon’s rule, he was reluctant to serve in his government. After the Bourbon Restoration in 1814, he joined the Chamber of Deputies, remaining in that role until his death. In 1824, Lafayette returned to America and toured all 24 states during his visit. During the Revolution of 1830, he supported Louis-Phillipe as king, but later regretted that decision. 5 Louis XVIII fled France in 1791 and remained in exile until 1815.
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MARY HAYS: LIFE, WRITINGS, AND CORRESPONDENCE > MARY HAYS CORRESPONDENCE > 1810-1819 > 1815 >