CLXXVII. TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
December, 1809.
My dear Southey,—I suspect you have misunderstood me, and applied to the Maltese Regiment what I said of the Corsican Rangers. Both are bad enough, but of the former I know little, of course, as I was away from Malta before the regiment had left the island. But in the Essays (2 or 3) which I am now writing on Sir A. Ball, I shall mention it as an exemplification among many others of his foresight. It was a job, I have no doubt, merely to get General Valette a lucrative regiment; but G. V. is dead, and it was not such a job as that of the Corsican Rangers, which can be made appear glaring. The long and short of the story is, that the men were four fifths married, would have fought as well as the best, at home and behind their own walls, but could not be expected to fight abroad, where they had no interest. Besides, it was cruel, shameful to take 1,500 men as soldiers for any part of our enormous Empire, out of a population, man, woman, and child, not at that time more than 100,000. There were two Maltese Militia Regiments officered by their own Maltese nobility—these against the entreaties and tears of the men and officers (I myself saw them weeping), against the remonstrances and memorial (written by myself) of Sir A. B., were melted into one large one, officered by English officers, and a general affront given to the island, because General Valette had great friends at the War Office, Duke of York, etc.! This is the whole, but do not either expose yourself or me to judicial inquiries. It is one thing to know a thing, and another to be able to prove it in a law court. This remark applies to the damnable treatment of the prisoners of war at Malta.
I should have thought your facts, with which I am familiar, a confirmation of Miss Schöning.[63] Be that as it may, take my word for it, that in substance the story is as certain as that Dr. Dodd was hung. To mention one proof only, Von Hess,[64] the celebrated historian of Hamburg, and, since Lessing, the best German prosist, went himself to Nuremberg, examined into the facts officially and personally, and it was on him that I relied, though if you knew the government of Nuremberg, you would see that the first account could not have been published as it was, if it had not been too notorious even for concealment to be hoped for. After I left Germany, Von Hess had a public controversy that threatened to become a Diet concern with the magistrates of Nuremberg, for some other bitter charges against them. I have their defence of themselves, but they do not even attempt to deny the fact of Harlin and Schöning. But, indeed, Southey! it is almost as bad as if I could have mistaken e converso Patch’s trial for a novel.
Your remark on the voice is most just, but that was my purpose. Not only so, but the whole passage was inserted, and intertruded after the rest was written, reluctante amanuensi meâ, in order to unrealize it even at the expense of disnaturalizing it. Lady B. therefore pleased me by saying, “never was the golden tint of the poet more judiciously employed,” etc. For this reason, too, I introduced the simile of the leaf, etc., etc. I not only thought the “voice” part out of place, but in bad taste per se.
May God bless you all.
S. T. Coleridge.