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Haileybury - The Principal of Haileybury College, Charles Webb Le Bas has resigned: 'I am more pained than I could have anticipated at seeing him thus driven from his home and office'. His 'probable successor cannot be looked forward to very cheerfully'. If Jeremie [James Amiraux Jeremie] 'could have served under Le Bas quietly and cordially - the place would have dropt into his mouth in a year or two - as it is no one dreams of him here as in London and he knows it' - he is 'wholly unconscious of what he has done to others - almost insanely so'. RJ's coachman has committed suicide - 'the whole household has been in gloom'.

Written from East India College, Hertford.

East India College, Hertford - Le Bas encloses tide observations carried out by one of his parishioners.

East India College, Hertford - They have a 'candidate for matrimony, and a Professorship' [of Mathematics] called Heaviside [James W. L. Heaviside]: and since they know nothing about him, 'we are naturally anxious to ascertain...what manner of a person he is. We are told that he is 'voiced most regardfully ' among you, as a consummate master of the integral and differential mysteries. We are, moreover, assured that he is a good social fellow, and a man of the world'. The patrons and Masters of the College are seeking a new constitution, but Le Bas has no idea why they want a Dean.

East India College, Hertford - Has WW seen a work in French on the occult sciences by [Eusèbe Salverte]: one of its main objects is to show that the ancients were in full possession of such things as gunpowder and other mysteries, and that by means of these, 'most of the stupendous miracles of the O.T. [Old Testament] are capable of rational explanation?' Le Bas would like a discussion of this in the British Critic and thinks WW or someone from the Philosophical Society would be perfect for the task. Just as the Edinburgh Review is calling upon the ''well-paid and well-fed' functionaries of the Establishment...to grapple with the half starved rational Divines of Germany, who are for explaining away all miraculous aging. Surely it is...incumbent upon us to dispose of similar attacks from French free-thinkers. So far as I am able to judge, the hypothesis of the author is grossly extravagant - but it may require no common mastery in science to satisfy the public that it is so'. He is to offer himself for the Pulpit of Lincoln's Inn.

East India College, Hertford - 'Malthus [Thomas Malthus] will be here tomorrow, and I am here - and when will you and Jones be here?'

East India College, Hertford - Le Bas very much admires WW's two contributions to the British Critic [see Le Bas to WW, 21 October 1830] and hopes he will send them more work to publish - 'For the sake of the church, and of sound philosophy, let me urgently bespeak your future assistance to us - and that of our Cambridge friends' [WW contributed to the July issue 'Review of 'An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of Taxation' by the Revd Richard Jones'].

Horsham - Could WW ascertain from Mr Pricket [Marmaduke Prickett] what his views are as to a curacy. Obviously if he decides to sit for a fellowship again there is an end to the matter, but if not would he be interested in HJR's curacy? He has been ill and reading Napier's [William F. P. Napier] 'Peninsular War': 'What for a man! as my friends the Germans say - A coldblooded, long headed, Scotch Whig! What a combination of detestables! The cold admission that the war was unjust - the regular determination to defend every French act of atrocity as necessary severity - and to systematize the outbreakings of Spanish indignities as mere savage ferocity - the resolute and cold hearted depreciation of all the heroic efforts of the Spaniards at the beginning - and (with all their defects) their unbroken resolution and constant rallying under defeat'. Napier 'is a Scotchman writing for the Duke of Wellington and therefore determined to make him everything and the Spaniards nothing'. HJR would like to know what Charles W. Le Bas is preaching about: 'I envy you all being able to hear him'. HJR expects 'Eastlake [Charles Lock Eastlake] the painter here everyday and wish you could meet him'.

East India College, Hertford - Le Bas will write off to the editor of the B.C. [British Critic]; 'I have never seen any symptoms of insanity about him; and therefore presume that he will be delighted to hear of your proposal'. Le Bas agrees with WW that 'in the present state of the science, the best thing that can be done is to keep it quite distinct from theology'. Le Bas admits that he has been responsible for 'a good deal of what has been vented in the B.C. for the last two or three years'.