| identifiant | 104_Masson_SH |
|---|
| fait partie de | Masson |
|---|
| est validé | oui |
|---|
| date | 1815/08/09 00:00 |
|---|
| titre | Capitaine Maitland, commandant du Bellérophon au général Bertrand |
|---|
| texte en markdown | <body><h1 style="text-transform: uppercase; font-family: Chivo; font-size: 1.5rem; line-height: 1;"><b style="text-transform: none">103_Masson_SH - </b> L’amiral Cockburn à sa sœur Polly</h1>
<h2 data-kind="letter-context;" style="text-align: right; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal"> Northumberland, Off Falmouth, 9th August 1815</h2>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> My dear Polly, I write this letter to you because I know not whether my poor dear wife will (on its arrival in London) be in a state to receive it, & if she be, you will of course give it to her. Her letter of 2nd Aug.[us]t and yours of Friday & Saturday I received together, yesterday off Plymouth, as owing to circumstances I did not anchor there as was originally intended and this prevented my getting this letter you mentioned your intention of sending to me by the coach of Sunday night & which would have been <i> so interesting </i> to me, but unfortunately not being on the spot to send to enquire for it the people of the coach have neglected forwarding it to me & I have only your addendum of <i> 6 o'clock if Saturday evening </i> to bear me up on my voyage & until I can hear again from you; I confess after Mary's letter to Portsmouth I was not prepared for the reception of such bad accounts, I am however most thankful that I made a point of her not going out of Town & that she has thereby had the instant aid of the Physician she has confidence in, which will insure her mind her mind being kept as much as ease as possible under the existing circumstances, and I trust leave some chance for a continuation of the improvements you both mention on Saturday evening, and which I hope I must endeavor to comfort myself until the Weymouth joins me; the Weymouth is a store ship which was intended to have sailed with me but (as I <i> now </i> consider) most fortunately, was not ready, nor [<i>sic</i>] will not be ready for two or three days according to the Master's report, which will I dare say be fully extended to the time necessary to enable you to write by him in reply to this. I shall also write to desire him to enquire for parcels directed to me at all the coach offices in Plymouth, that I may get at last the letter you sent on Sunday night, and perhaps my remaining old blue box, which I wrote for to be sent to Plymouth. The shoes from Hoby[^1] I have received, but I do not wish his account to be settled until I have seen & approved it, as owing to both the boots & shoes having been so often sent backwards & forwards on account of not fitting, some may by mistake be charged which have in fact only been sent in lieu of others returned & which were paid for in his former accounts. </p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> James Parker mentioned by Mary in her letter of the 2d was certainly an imposter. No such man has reached me from the Admiralty, the quickness & good sense of my little wife was therefore conspicuous & valuable, in not having trusted him. I enclose marked <i>A</i> the certificate for the tall sailor you mention, and marked <i>B</i> is the copy of a letter & accounts I forward to the Admiralty by this opportunity, and which it has appeared to me advisable Mary should know the contents of for her governance, as if the Admiralty or Treasury do not immediately direct a further sum of money to be placed to my account at Coutt's[^2], it will be necessary for her to direct Coutt's again to sell out the £1000. I replaced in the Stocks (Navy 5 per cent) just previous to leaving London, which, or any part of which (if the government avert the necessity of it <i>now</i> she may also sell at any time she find it to be necessary for <i> her own</i> expenses between them & the time it is possible for me to send home my first quarterly bills, which according to what Lord Melville promised will in future be between £4 and £500 each set, but if W. Griffith & col. Barrie pay to <i>Broughton's</i> (the one about <i>£170</i> - the other about <i>£300</i>) according to <i>their</i> promises and engagements, I should wish Mary to use <i>that</i> in preference to selling out & she should send to Parliament street to ask if these sums have been received & and if not to enquire what steps have been taken respecting it, and I should deem it not unadvisable for you or some confidential person of the family to call at Coutt's and to make Marjoribanks or Coutt's Trotter [Note: Edward Marjoribanks et sir Coutts Trotter, partenaires dans la maison bancaire de Coutt's.] acquainted with the purpose of my letter to the Admiralty (with the accounts) & to beg of them to make some enquiries whether anything be ordered to be done at the Treasury in consequence of it, and to request them to take their measures accordingly; I cannot Believe Government will act so unjustly by me as to give me so irksome & difficult a service to perform for them and then to throw a great proportion of the expense on my very limited private property, & therefore I trust that on enquiry it will prove that order are issued for reimbursing Coutt's the amount I shall have exceeded my first grant of £1500. Mary will observe I have not included in the public account the tailor's bill and some others I did not think I had a right to place to the extra account of the service (though in fact I should not have been forced to have purchased them had I been permitted to have remained onshore). But if they make me a proper allowance for the proportion of my times which are already paid for, it will cover the amounts of the things I have omitted charging from delicacy, and my Banking book would in such case stand nearly the same as it did previous to my receiving my orders, and this is what <i>at least</i> ought to be done for me; whether it will or not remains to be proved, I have done my duty & made a clear & plain representation about it and if Government refuse to do what is right about it, I must do the best I can for the present, & I must afterwards kick up a row about it & try if by the means of my "<i>particular friends</i>" Lords Liverpool, Sidmouth, Mulgrave etc. etc. etc. I cannot get justice done to me in this respect, even should the admiralty (decidedly the shabbiest of all Boards of the Government) be inclined to deny it me. </p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> With all this upon my mind, added to poor dear Mary's illness, you may naturally suppose I am not in the best spirits nor in the best temper possible. My French companions are I believe puzzled what to make of me and the whole of them as well as the ex-Emperor seem to be more than half afraid of me. They made a desperate effort on first coming on board to obtain for him exclusively my great after cabin, but finding Nothing else would do I gave him to understand I could not spare it to him & therefore that when he would not favor us with his company, he might retire to the cabin I had appropriated for him for his bed room. He was violent on first coming on board about the unjust way in which our government had treated him, but finding that kind of conversation not well received by me, he has dropped it, and if I am not very much mistaken I have already got this unruly gentleman into the right tune for preventing him giving me or any other person further trouble, his change to be sure, from being <i>Emperor</i> on board the Bellerophon, to being <i>prisoner</i> & <i>guest</i> on board the Northumberland has been somewhat sudden & has required an unusual degree of flexibility of temper to accommodate himself to it, but I have endeavoured to impress on his mind & and on the minds of his attendants that so long as he recollects he is my prisoner, I shall not forget that he is my guest, which will insure to him every attention & civility I can consistently pay him. The first day he came on board, he eat [<i>sic</i>] a very hearty dinner and in the evening proposed a game at card which being acceded to, we played a vingt-un [<i>sic</i>] with much good humour until eleven o'clock, when he went to bed; at dinner & during our walk after dinner, I had much interesting conversation with him, principally respecting his Russian Campaign, all of which I have committed to book, as I shall everything that passes between us. Yesterday, laying off Plymouth waiting for my squadron to come out, we had a good deal of rough sea which made him sick & he was consequently not ready for dinner at five o'clock (the hour I have given them to understand is fixed for it). I therefore went to dinner with the rest of the party and sent his to him in his bed room, expressing however great concern at his being so unwell as not to have been able to have prepared himself to dine with us, but I would not propose to wait for him, that they might all learn at once that they must not expect to change my regulations according to his or their convenience or whims; I shall take care to be always mighty civil to them but never to allow them to do anything I disapprove of, and it is quite laughable to see how uncommonly well we seem already to understand one another, much outward shew of regard & respect, and inwardly I am sure no love is lost between us, which is just as I would have it and as I shall Endeavour to keep it. </p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> I have now I think written as much as will perhaps be good for any sick wife to hear read, or to read at once. I have therefore only in addition to thank you my dear Polly for your kind attentions to her & care of her, which with the aid of sir Timothy Knighton I trust may authorize my still indulging hopes that I have heard the worst & that my next letters may tell me of all being well again. How anxiously I shall look for these letters I need not tell you I am sure, nor how vexed & disappointed I have been at missing your letter by the coach, which most probably contains sufficient to have enabled me to have formed a far better judgement than I now can as to her situation, however as I said before, I will hope for the best and rest myself on your kind & cheering addendum of 6 o'clock Saturday evening. </p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> I have written to James a very long letter which I sent to W. Freching to forward to him the same day I wrote the hurried scrap to Mary from off Berry Head. You may therefore judge whether it was in time to save this month's mail. I hope & think it was.
In the account you sent me of moneys paid or to be paid in London, Gunter was omitted. You will see I have guessed it at £30. They tell me there was but two small cases of it, let me know when next I hear from you whether I have been above or below the mark & how much?
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> God bless you all. Kiss Paddy for me, comfort my wife, make George learn his Lesson & not make a noise over his poor aunt's head and believe me always,
my dear sister, </p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> your ever affectionately attached</p>
<h3 data-kind="letter-signature" style="text-align: right; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal"> G. Cockburn </h3>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> I do not think I have left anything of importance unnoticed. If I have, you must act for yourselves & depend on my approval. The direction to the commander of the Weymouth is as follows: </p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> Mr Turner, Commanding the Weymouth store ship, Plymouth</p>
<p style="text-indent: 1.25cm; margin-top: 0cm"> but my letters had better perhaps be directed for me <i>to his care</i> & put under cover to sir Jo.[hn] Duckworth, the port Admiral who will take care of them or return them to you if Weymouth be sailed.[^3] </p>
[^1]: George Hoby (1759-1832), célèbre artisan de bottes et chaussures londonien fabricant les très célèbres 'bottes de Wellington' (Wellington Boot).
[^2]: Célèbre maison bancaire de Londres, encore existante.
[^3]: Expédition, Bibliothèque Thiers, fonds Masson, carton 8, fol. 148.</body> |
|---|
| |