That it was in contemplation to proceed against the author and printer of the Letter to Lord Ellenborough, or at least that the talk of Barnstaple turned on proceedings for their punishment, may be inferred from Mr. Syle’s alarm and vain endeavours to recover the fifty copies of the Letter, delivered to Shelley a day or two before Daniel Hill’s arrest. Alarmed by the arrest, Mr. Syle was quick to destroy all copies of the pamphlet lying in his office; the Letter to Lord Ellenborough being the third (possibly, the fourth) of Shelley’s juvenile productions to be suppressed by a panic-struck printer.
My good friend, Mr. Chanter, of Barnstaple, is certain that Mr. Syle had several interviews with Shelley, in order to recover the fifty copies of the Letter which had been sent to London. It is needless to say that these ‘several interviews’ were unsatisfactory to Mr. Syle. It may be assumed that to account for his refusal to surrender the printed copies, Shelley declared his inability to restore them, as they had already passed from his keeping. As the printer would have thought it worth his while to be at much pains and cost to follow the fifty copies or any one of them, it may be assumed that he asked Shelley, whither they had gone,—to whom and by whom they had been distributed. Having a strong opinion that they had not been distributed by Daniel Hill, on whose person none of the Letters had been found, Mr. Syle had good reason for thinking that, if they had really passed from Shelley’s hands, they must have been dispersed either by the writer himself or the ladies of his party. We may, therefore, be sure that Shelley was pressed strongly to give or procure precise information respecting the circumstances of their distribution. With equal confidence it may be assumed that Shelley withheld from the printer, that the fifty copies had been sent to Mr. Hookham. Writing from information, that came to him directly or indirectly from persons concerned in printing the libellous writing, Mr. Chanter says, ‘He’ (i.e. Mr. Syle) ‘at once suppressed and destroyed the remaining sheets, and had several interviews with Shelley to endeavour to get back the ones previously delivered, but unsuccessfully, as they had been mostly distributed’:—words implying a gradual distribution in the neighbourhood. Had Shelley told the printer what had been done with the pamphlets, it would scarcely have lived in local tradition, that they had been dispersed in the manner indicated by Mr. Chanter’s words. Moreover, on discovering what trouble might come to him from the affair, Shelley (a capital keeper of a secret he was interested in keeping) had a good reason for withholding from the Barnstaple tradesman a piece of information, which he might under pressure and for his own safety communicate to the magistrates of the borough, with consequences inconvenient to Mr. Hookham and Mr. Hookham’s correspondent.
The evidence that Shelley’s withdrawal from North Devon was connected with the stir and ferment occasioned by the publication of seditious literature, is only circumstantial; but it is such strong evidence of its weak kind that few readers will think it insufficient for the conclusion, to which it has brought the present writer. Settled at Lynton, with the purpose of remaining there till by economical living he should have recovered his ‘financial liberty’—i.e. till next quarter-day—Shelley likes his lodgings and his landlady, and in various ways seems confirmed in his resolve to stay there for several weeks; when within twelve days or a fortnight he moves hurriedly into another county, lying well away from Devon. Making this migration soon after his servant’s arrest, he makes it at a moment when people are saying he ought to be sent to Barnstaple Gaol to keep Daniel Hill company, and the Barnstaple bookseller is fearful of being prosecuted for publishing what his customer has written.
The prosecution of which Mr. Syle was fearful would have been a prosecution in which he, as publisher, would have been associated in the dock with Shelley, as author. Had Mr. Syle’s alarm been justified by the event, he and Shelley would have been tried together. All that Mr. Syle feared for himself, Shelley had reason to fear for himself. Is it to be supposed that, whilst the bookseller was agitated with terror, Shelley,—a youthful, nervous, excitable laudanum-drinker,—was free from fear? At this moment of terror, and real or imaginary peril, Shelley runs along the coast from Lynton to Ilfracombe, and crossing the water with his three female companions gets into Wales. This flight is made at a moment when there are stringent pecuniary reasons why they should remain at Lynton. Surely here is a body of circumstantial evidence strong enough to justify something more than a strong suspicion that in running from North Devon to Wales, Shelley was impelled by apprehension of the same legal proceedings, which poor Mr. Syle was anticipating with terror! In North Devon he was liable to arrest at any moment. In South Wales he would be secure from immediate seizure. Hidden in a secluded corner of Carmarthenshire, he would not be easily tracked and discovered.
The flight had been made something less than three weeks, when William Godwin, relying on his young friend’s frequent and pressing invitations, determined to pay him a visit at Lynton. Mounting coach in London, the philosopher travelled smoothly enough to Bristol, whence he passed over stormy waters to Lynmouth, enduring discomforts (scarcely to be imagined in these luxurious days) during the trip, so humorously touched upon by Hogg, and so graphically described by the voyager himself. After recovering from sea-sickness the disappointed traveller gave his wife some particulars, which he was pleased to call ‘good news,’ respecting the erratic people, whom he had hoped to find near the Valley of Rocks. He had seen the worthy woman, in whose house the Shelleys had lodged for nine weeks and three days. Leaving Lynton precipitately, the Shelleys had gone off in debt to their landlady and two other people: in debt to her for room-rent and necessaries, and for 29s. of borrowed money, besides 3l., which she had induced a neighbour to lend them. Godwin erred in thinking the fugitives had been constrained to borrow this 4l. 9s., because they could not get change at Lynmouth for the two halves of a bank-note; for at the moment of running off, they had not received the second half of the divided note. It delighted Godwin to observe the affectionate warmth with which the landlady spoke of her late lodgers; and he was pleased at learning from her, that they would be in London in a fortnight.
In their desire to get away from Lynton as quickly as possible, the four friends left Lynton in debt, and could not have left it so soon, had they not induced two of the villagers to lend them four pounds and nine shillings. One of the adventurers (probably Shelley) was in possession of the one half of a bank-note, the second half of the divided paper having not yet come to hand. From what source this note came does not appear. It looks as though Shelley had written to some friend for a small loan to enable him to escape quickly from a perilous position, and that the half-note in hand was the first half of a consequent remittance. Anyhow it points to the precipitateness of the departure, that the fugitives did not like to wait till the post should bring the second half of the negotiable paper. Hastening off with the half-note and borrowed money the adventurers went to Ilfracombe, whence they returned the four pounds and nine shillings to the two several lenders,—3l. to Mrs. Hooper’s friend, and 29s. to the landlady herself, to whom they had given ‘a draft upon the Honourable Mr. Lawleys, brother to Lord Cloncurry,’ for the full payment of the amount in which they were indebted to her. There is no doubt that the gentleman so strangely misdescribed was ‘honest Jack,’ who was nothing more than a distant relation to Lord Cloncurry. The draft is not in evidence to show whether honest Jack was so suspiciously misdescribed on the document itself; but it cannot be questioned that the simple lodginghouse-keeper had been talked into believing that the order for payment, instead of being addressed to a penniless littérateur, was drawn upon a personage of social importance.
I wish I could think honest Jack had not been so misdescribed to this simple soul of a North Devon village, in order that she should the more readily be induced to accept the dubious draft in payment of her little account. Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy remarks jocosely on this business, ‘We trust that the good Mrs. Hooper of Lynmonth was not kept out of her money until the “enormous profits” which Shelley so sanguinely expected from the publication of The History of Ireland were realized.’ Even at this remoteness from the end of the poor woman’s earthly cares the reader of this page may well repeat seriously what Mr. MacCarthy says jestingly; for many a poor widow has been brought to the workhouse by her simplicity in taking a worthless cheque from a lodger, who ought to have paid what he promised to give her—ready money.
For the present enough has been said of Shelley’s reasons for wishing to leave North Devon, and of the manner of his flight. Enough has been said to show how far Lady Shelley is justified in ascribing the poet’s abrupt withdrawal from Lynton to Tanyrallt, altogether to ‘the restlessness of his disposition.’