Adam Sisman - The Friendship - Wordsworth and Coleridge

It was not a good moment to advertise radical sentiments. Parliament had just passed a declaration that ‘a traitorous and detestable conspiracy had been formed for subverting the existing laws and constitution, and for introducing the system of anarchy and confusion which has so lately prevailed in France’ – after ministers had presented intelligence to secret committees of both Houses. The Habeas Corpus Act (which protected the individual from detention without trial) was accordingly suspended. Twelve prominent radicals, including leaders of the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information, were arrested and imprisoned in the Tower, awaiting trial on charges of treason. Suspect letters were intercepted and opened by the authorities. On the very day that Wordsworth wrote to Mathews, his elder brother Richard warned him to ‘be cautious in writing or expressing your political opinions’. Dorothy (who until very recently had been living with her brother at Windy Brow) replied to Richard: ‘I think I can answer for William’s caution about expressing his political opinions. He is very cautious and seems well aware of the dangers of a contrary conduct.’ 11

The government’s crackdown was the culmination of months of less co-ordinated repression. In December 1793 a ‘British Convention’ of reformers meeting in Edinburgh had been broken up by the authorities; the secretary, William Skirving, and two delegates from the London Corresponding Society, Joseph Gerrald and Maurice Margarot, were found guilty of sedition and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation. The dignified conduct of the prisoners during their manifestly unfair trials made a powerful impression on the public, and the widespread revulsion at the savagery of their sentences was strong enough to counterbalance the prevalent horror at events in France. In a separate Scottish case, Robert Watt and David Downie were accused of planning an armed uprising and found guilty of treason: both were sentenced to death, but Downie was pardoned. Watt, who was executed, had been a government informer, and may have been acting as an agent provocateur; the whole conspiracy was probably a bungled attempt to entrap Downie and other radicals. In England, several prosecutions for sedition collapsed in a mêlée of disreputable witnesses and ridiculous charges. For example, the London Corresponding Society was accused of plotting to assassinate the King with a poisoned arrow fired from an airgun, a charge so ludicrous that it immediately earned the name the ‘Pop-Gun Plot’.

Dorothy was mistaken in her assurances to Richard, because a week or so later Wordsworth wrote another letter to Mathews, setting out his political views in greater detail: ‘I disapprove of monarchical and aristocratical governments, however modified. Hereditary distinctions and privileged orders of every species I think must necessarily counteract the progress of human improvement: hence it follows that I am not amongst the admirers of the British constitution.’ He argued that the constitution was being subverted by two causes: the ‘infatuation profligacy and extravagance of men in power’, and the ‘changes of opinion rapidly’ taking place ‘in the minds of speculative men’. He deplored ‘the miserable situation of the French’ – as well he might, because as he wrote these words the Terror was approaching its murderous climax – and believed that ‘a more excellent system of civil policy’ might still be established in Britain without a cataclysmic upheaval. Ministers, not radicals, were driving the country towards the precipice. ‘I recoil from the bare idea of a revolution; yet, if our conduct with reference both to foreign and domestic policy continues such as it has been for the last two years how is that dreadful event to be averted?’ Wordsworth was sure of the answer: ‘gradual and constant reform of those abuses which, if left to themselves, may grow to such a height as to render, even a revolution desirable’. There was, he felt, ‘a further duty incumbent upon every enlightened friend of mankind’, namely to propagate principles of ‘political justice’; these ‘will guide the hand of reform, and if a revolution must afflict us, they alone can mitigate its horrors and establish freedom with tranquillity’. 12

This is a Godwinian manifesto, punctuated with Godwinian ideas and terminology. Indeed the whole Philanthropist project reeks of Godwin. It is obvious from Wordsworth’s letters in the spring of 1794 that he has read Godwin’s Political Justice . He is moving away from a belief in direct action to achieve political change in Britain towards one of disseminating progressive ideas to bring about reform. ‘I know that the multitude walk in darkness. I would put into each man’s hand a lantern to guide him,’ he wrote to Mathews – echoing Godwin’s metaphor ‘the illumination of our understanding’. Quite when Wordsworth read Godwin is not obvious. It is interesting to speculate how he might have obtained a copy of Political Justice , given that it was relatively expensive *and he was so short of money. Perhaps Calvert had a copy. (Pitt is supposed to have advised the Privy Council that there was no need to suppress Political Justice , as ‘a three guinea book could never do much harm among those who had not three shillings to spare’ – though the price of the first edition was in fact £1.16s. 13 )

Coleridge’s military career lasted little more than four months. He was an unsuitable dragoon, being ‘a very indocile equestrian’ and moreover saddle-sore. In a single week he was thrown from his horse three times, and ‘run away with’ almost every day: ‘I ride a horse young, and as undisciplined as myself.’ During a couple of months’ basic training in the Home Counties Coleridge had evidently not impressed his commanding officers, because when the regiment moved on he was left behind in Henley-upon-Thames to care for a soldier suffering from smallpox. An anxious letter from his brother George caught up with him there. Coleridge’s reply was hysterical with pious remorse and abject self-pity: ‘O that without guilt I might ask of my Maker Annihilation!’ 14 He did not attempt to explain his conduct: ‘my mind is illegible to myself’. George tried to organise his release; his eldest surviving brother James, a professional soldier, made a direct appeal to the General in command. The General was too busy to reply, being fully occupied in raising a new regiment, but after three weeks’ delay a response came from the new officer in command. Coleridge had received six and a half guineas’ bounty to enlist; his brothers must pay twenty-five guineas to secure his discharge – on the basis that it would require such an amount to obtain a substitute. No substitute was forthcoming, so another pretext for his release had to be found. An entry in the muster roll of the regiment dated 10 April 1794 reads, ‘discharged S.T. Comberbach/Insane’.

Coleridge returned to Cambridge, to receive another reprimand from the Master. His punishment was to be gated for a month, and to translate ninety pages from the Greek. He accepted his sentence humbly, conscious of his luck that the college had kept his place open. To complete his degree he would have to stay an extra year, to the end of 1795. His brothers had supplied him with cash for his immediate expenses, and raised a handsome sum towards liquidating his college debts; in return, Coleridge promised to reform. In fact, his mind was wandering. At the end of the Trinity term, after only a couple of months in Cambridge, he set out on a walking tour with a good-natured undergraduate called Joseph Hucks. They were destined for Wales – but first they made a stopover in Oxford, to visit Coleridge’s earliest school friend, Robert Allen, who was studying medicine at University College. Allen, who in time would himself join the dragoons as a military surgeon, had sent Coleridge money and various small luxuries during his army ordeal, and twice visited him in his quarters. Allen was renowned for his charm, his intelligence and his good looks; after he had accidentally run into a barrow woman in the street one day, she started to swear at him until she saw his face: ‘Where are you driving to, you great hulking, good-for-nothing – beautiful fellow, God bless you!’