1607. Robert Southey to Thomas Southey, 27 March 1809*
Monday. March 27. 1809My dear Tom
Another girl – dont be disappointed, – but I I take what comes thankfully & hope for a boy next time. The name is not yet chosen. It should be Thomasine if I could get Edith to like, – or if it did not so so compleatly make a Tom-boy of her. I hesitate between that, Ellen, Eleanor, Isabel & Susan.
She made her appearance this morning at six, & all is going on well.
What is become of you? not a line since that hasty intelligence that you were going to the W Indies, – & I cannot learn any thing about the Dreadnought1 from the papers?
God bless you – yrs in haste RS.
Notes
Address: To/ Lieutenant Southey/ H. M. S. Dreadnought/ Plymouth Dock
Stamped:
KESWICK/ 298
MS: British Library, Add MS 47890. ALS; 2p.
Unpublished. Back
1. HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy 98-gun second rate ship of the line, launched in 1801. Two days after writing this, Southey received a letter from Tom informing him that he was at Cadiz and expecting to go to Madeira and thence to Buenos Aires; see Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 30 March [1809], Letter 1609. Later in 1809 she was off Ushant in the English Channel, to continue the bloackade of French ports. Back