Grosvenor Square - Congratulations on engagement.
The Lodge, St. John's College, Cambridge. - 'Thank you... for your memoir of Gaselee...
Bill due to William Whewell, and sent 'With Mr Whewell's compliments'.
Corfu climate, local costumes, acquired chartreuse from Florence for Eugene Sanford
Sidney Sussex. Process of appointment of the Harrow headmaster.
21 Grande Rue, Boulogne Sur Mer. - Remorse after sending letter last summer; encloses pamphlet [no longer present] on Hayti [sic]; would Milnes draw Palmerston's attention to his own copy? Bathurst's father Robert was the eldest nephew of Henry Bathurst, bishop of Norwich [in fact he seems to have been a younger brother]; he made a fortune in India and bought Bream Lodge, near Lydney Park; died there in 1822 [actually 1821] when Edward Bathurst was four. Describes disposal of estate. Bathurst's uncle Charles ran the Indian business but ruined the family and 'died of a champagne surfeit in 1832' [1831?]. Bathurst himself went to India in 1835 but was unable to recover anything; accuses James Weir Hogg and Elliott Macnaghten of profiting from Indian crash.
Travelled in India; sailed to St Helena and witnessed the exhumation of Napoleon: 'the massy chest unclosed, and behold - such was the skill of the embalmer - the features of the Emperor in all their well-remembered beauty; features over which corruption seemed to have no power'. Returned to England and entered Lincoln's Inn before obtaining Vice-Consulship at Copenhagen through Lord Bathurst; his labours there; accepted posting to Cape Haytien on Sir Henry Wynn's advice but was unable to obtain any details; criticises 'esoteric mysteries of the Foreign Office; problems in Jamaica and Haiti; expense of building and other privations; abolition of post without recompense; creditors include Copeland, who unfairly supplied an expensive crockery service; has snubbed Haytians but otherwise gained approval; has not asked for promotion but for reinstatement; pleads case rhetorically.
Enclosure: 'Copy from a manuscript of the Character of the late Robert Bathurst [Junior?] Esq. originally taken from the Cawnpore Advertiser' [c May 1822], copy dated 23 Dec. 1833.
Condolences on the death of C J Monk
Keswick.—Account of her journey through Yorkshire and Westmorland.
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Transcript
Keswick. April 20th 1820
My dear Papa
You were kind enough to wish me to write home when I had passed the Craven of Yorkshire and reached the Lakes, and though we have accomplished this sooner than I expected, yet I do not like to delay writing because of the pleasure it gives me, and because I have now a great deal to tell you. Wakefield, whence I last wrote, proved by day-light a very nasty town, though it stands by a beautiful river, the Calder, and is surrounded by more varied country than any we had then seen; but the country all round is spoiled by the coal mines which spread blackness and desolation all about them. The road is black, and great barrows of coals are all along to Bradford. All the houses in the villages are built of stone which has a cold and comfortless appearance and the poor children are so begrimed with coal-dust that they look quite wretched. Bradford lies in a valley crowded with manufactories and coal mines and iron-works, from the tall blackened chimneys of which clouds of black smoke and white steam pour, and almost hide the poor suffocated town below. Some miles before reaching Skipton, the next stage, the character of the scenery quite changes and assumes the wild, rocky features of the Craven. We saw Lord Thanet’s castle at Skipton. It is neither handsome or very old or curious. It was built in the year 1629, and has all the faults of architecture at that period. Here we left the direct road in order to visit Malham Cove and Gordale’s Scaur, and I am very glad we did so, for the first is one of the most curious, and the latter the very grandest sight I ever beheld. The Cove is a kind of chalky amphitheatre in the grey stone rocks, from the base of which a little stream issues and winds along the valley through the village. The rock rises perpendicularly and almost unbroken to a great height, and I thought it the most awful† thing I had ever seen till I went to Gordale’s Scaur. This is a narrow ravine between overhanging rocks of immense height, from which a stream of water issues under a natural arch in the mountain, and, after making three distinct leaps, it dashes into the valley below, here quite choked by huge pieces of fallen rock, which throw up the water in foam and smoke to a great height. The rocks are so high, and the cleft so narrow, that without looking quite back the sun cannot be seen. It is a most aweful situation—enclosed in the dark jaws of such a ravine of dark rock, only varied by the deep green yew trees which take root in the rifts of the mountain. I could not witness so grand a scene {1} without feelings almost of terror, though I am sure I was not afraid of anything there. We reached Settle at night after a very hilly ride through country which became more grand as we advanced farther. The town is beautifully situated under high green hills, one of which suddenly starts into an abrupt slaty rock and almost overhangs the town. At about ¾ of a mile from Settle, close by the road side we stopped to see the ebbing and flowing well at Gigleswick—the water rose and fell just ten inches in less than as many minutes. We soon saw Ingleburgh high above the other mountains, with its outlines all obscured by the mists and clouds floating round its head. All the way to Ingleton and Kirby Lonsdale the scenery though varying at every turn of the road and with every gleam of sun and passing cloud, is much of the same character. But Winandermere and Grassmere and Keswick which I have just seen by moon light are grand indeed. I am obliged to break off as the post will close in 5 minutes. {2} Say all all that is affectionate for me to all at home
and believe me ever | your very dutiful daughter
Eliz. Turner
[Superscription:] Dawson Turner Esqre | Gt. Yarmouth—Norfolk
[Postmark:] KESWICK | 298
[Postal fee:] 1/1
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There is a thumbnail sketch of a sheep, curled up, on a blank part of the sheet.
{1} This is probably the spelling intended, but the word contains a superfluous letter.
{2} The writing is more hurried towards the end of the letter, which finishes half-way down the third page of the sheet.
21 Chatham Place, Pitt Street, Old Kent Road. - Is living with daughter in penury through unemployment and ill health; small sum would ease suffering; quotes editor of The Monthly Magazine in praise of his verse in Jul. 1825; appends transcripts of sonnets published there and in the London Magazine. Postscript: has served as amanuensis and assistant to 'a deceased eminent literary character' for seven years; also has testimonials from the publisher Sir Richard Phillips.
On headed notepaper for the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, Manchester. - Is grateful to Houghton for his 'generous offer to have given me your support at Pontefract in the event of my having consented to stand for the Borough'; was 'very greatly pleased' with Milnes' friend Peel and 'shall do all I possibly can to secure his return'; has recently spoken in his favour at a meeting of the '"advanced" liberals', and a report subsequently appeared in the Examiner & Times.
Glad that Houghton has made up his stock sufficiently to qualify as a director of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway; there is no vacancy at present but will propose his name as soon as one appears.
Concerning Milnes' Observations on the History of Thomas Earl of Lancaster.
E. I. Coll. - Thanks WW for sending him a copy of his paper on the application of mathematics to political economy ['Mathematical Exposition of Some Doctrines of Political Economy', 1829]: 'I have looked over it with great interest; but I am ashamed to say that, never having been very familiar with the present algebraic notation, and for a great many years having been quite unaccustomed to it, I cannot follow you as I could wish, without more attention and application than I can give to the subject in the midst of our College examinations'. Nevertheless TRM thinks WW's conclusions are fairly just, and believes in certain cases mathematical calculations could be applied with advantage to Political Economy - 'particularly with a view to determine the different degrees in which certain objects are affected, under different hypotheses. The grand difficulty however, with a view to practicability, is the getting data to work upon, sufficiently near the truth; and such as can be stated distinctly in mathematical language. In many cases where one should wish to come to definite conclusions I should fear this was quite impracticable. I have long thought that these are many of the results in political economy which have some resemblance to the problems de maximes et minimes, such as the most favourable division of landed property, neither too great nor too small; and the most advantageous proportions, (with a view to the permanent increase of wealth) in which the whole produce of capital should be divided between the capitalists and labourers. But I do not see how such propositions could be put into proper language for a fluxional solution, varying as the result must do with the fertility of soils and the productiveness of capitals'. TRM thinks that the points WW discusses in his paper are more manageable - 'though perhaps all your axioms may not be sufficiently general. Does your third include cases of the saving of labour, where new land may be cultivated without an increase in the value of the produce? And does your fourth include the case of an increased demand with the same supply? I think it might have been difficult to proceed without the supposition of a limiting soil on which the cost of production is determined. And yet this, and all the conclusions in the latter part of Mr P. Thompson's essay belong entirely to the New theory of Rent ['An Exposition of Fallacies on Rent, Tithes,etc...Being in the Form of a Review of the Third Edition of Mr Mill's Elements of Political Economy', 1826], and not to what he calls the True Theory which he at first proposes to substitute for it, namely the kind of monopoly from which the price of Tokay arises. This had indeed been the usual view of the subject; and the particular object of my original pamphlet on R[ent] to which Mr Ricardo refers, was to shew the doctrine [of] ordinary rent, and the rent arising from a common street monopoly, such as a Tokay vineyard. I quite agree with Mr P. Thompson that the productions of soil are not necessary to the exactness of rent, as I repeatedly expressed in print long before he wrote. But as productions of soil do actually take place in all countries, all the practical questions relating to places and tithes must be essentially modified by them. Mr Thompson states most correctly, as I have often stated to Mr Ricardo that taxes on raw produce, or tithes, throw lands of a certain quality out of cultivation, or prevent their being cultivated, and in this way fall on rent, on the other hand if the supply were unaffected by the tax it would, as you partly observe fall on the consumer. But these questions do not apply at all to a Tokay vineyard: The actual value of corn is necessary to its actual supply in the exacting quantity (newly), but the same quantity of Tokay would continue to be supplied at a much lower value. The permanent rise in the value of corn is strictly limited by the circumstance of its being the necessary food of the demanders. The rise in the value of Tokay has no limit but the wealth and caprice of a few consumers. I cannot but think therefore that it was an unfortunate comparison and the essay would have been totally inapplicable to real state of things if he had adhered to it. Can we suppose that the capital employed on good land is 2[,] 3 or 4 times that which is employed on the same quantity of any poor land? Sometimes the revenue is the fact. By the bye, you have inadvertently said that Mr Ricardo maintains that a tax on wages must fall on the labourers. He says it must full on profits. But the error does not affect your illustration of the use of mathematics in Pol. Economy which is a very good one'.