Dear Rose
I received your letter just as I left home this morning. I had not forgot your wish to have a description of our gun-boats; but as many of my friends here are more expert in fitting a boat, or fighting it, than in writing or drawing, I could not at once obtain one which would explain to you the last improved mode of fitting as accurately as I wished. But Mr. Whitby, the Assistant of Sheerness Yard, who has been appointed to superintend the work, and whom I saw yesterday, has promised me to send immediately to your house, in Palace Yard, a small model of the frame and slide, which will, I trust, completely answer the purpose. I should hope it will reach your house in a day or two, and you will, I take for granted, send orders for its being immediately forwarded to you by coach. We have now fitted, or are fitting, I believe, about 170 boats between Margate and Hastings, which, I think, will contribute not a little to giving the enemy a good reception whenever they think proper to visit us. By the intelligence I collect, and by the orders for extraordinary preparation which are received from London by this post, I am much more inclined than I have ever been hitherto to believe that some attempt will be made soon. In this situation I am likely to have my time very completely occupied by the various concerns of my regiment and my district. I hope, however, to find some interval for attending a little to the cursory remarks, when I hear from Long, which I am expecting to do every day. Our volunteers are, I think, likely, to be called upon to undertake permanent duty, which, I hope, they will readily consent to. I suppose the same measure will be recommended in your part of the coast. I wish the arrangements for defence were as forward everywhere else as they are in Hythe Bay, under General Moore. We begin now to have no other fear in that quarter than that the enemy will not give us an opportunity of putting our preparations to the proof, and will select some other point, which we should not be in search of in the first instance. I write here to save the post, as I shall not get back to Walmer till a late hour.
Ever sincerely yours,
W. Pitt.
CONDITION OF THE POOR IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS (1804).
Source.—Gentleman’s Magazine. Vol. 74, July to December, 1804, p. 710.
July 17.
Mr. Urban,
“Judge not, lest you be judged.”
The benevolence and humanity of Dr. Lettsom must ensure esteem; and certainly the trouble he has taken to meliorate the condition of the labouring poor must deserve praise, and be grateful to his own feelings, but, in the way of doing good, there is much delicacy required; and while we are zealous in our endeavours to promote an active charity in one particular instance, we should be careful, in the extension of this important Christian duty, not to forget the other Christian branch of charity to others also.
In his Remarks on the Condition of the Children of our labouring Poor, this worthy medical gentleman has, I think, been too partial in confining his subject to the great manufacturing towns of this kingdom, and very particularly so in his comparative view of the new Lanark Mills and those of Holy-well and Manchester.
I have always understood there is great difficulty in the attempt of separating the cause of the evil which a state derives from the immorality and the emasculated condition of the poor, from the important benefits which it derives from the increasing manufactures carried on by these objects of our speculation. That the regulation of the morals and the health of the rising progeny of a state, as conducive to industry and to opulence, demands every attention, it is needless to argue; but let us see the great difficulties which our principal manufacturing towns labour under, such as Birmingham and Manchester, compared with the less contaminated primitive and more hardy poor connected with the manufactories of Scotland.