117 — To his Mother
8, St. James's Street, March 6, 1809.
Dear Mother, —
My
last letter was written under great depression of spirits from poor Falkland's death
, who has left without a shilling four children and his wife. I have been endeavouring to assist them, which, God knows, I cannot do as I could wish, for my own embarrassments and the many claims upon me from other quarters.
What you say is all very true: come what may,
Newstead
and I
stand
or fall together. I have now lived on the spot, I have fixed my heart upon it, and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within me which will enable me to support difficulties. I can endure privations; but could I obtain in exchange for Newstead Abbey the first fortune in the country, I would reject the proposition. Set your mind at ease on that score; Mr. Hanson talks like a man of business on the subject, — I feel like a man of honour, and I will not sell Newstead.
I
shall get my seat
on the return of the affidavits from Carhais, in Cornwall, and will do something in the House soon: I must dash, or it is all over. My Satire must be kept secret for a
month
; after that you may say what you please on the subject. Lord Carlisle has used me infamously, and refused to state any particulars of my family to the Chancellor. I have
lashed
him in my rhymes, and perhaps his lordship may regret not being more conciliatory. They tell me it will have a sale; I hope so, for the bookseller has behaved well, as far as publishing well goes.
Believe me, etc.
P.S. —
You
shall have a mortgage on one of the farms
.
Footnote 1:
Captain Charles John Cary, R.N., succeeded his brother Thomas in 1796 as ninth Lord Falkland. He married, in 1803, Miss Anton, the daughter of a West India merchant. He had been recently dismissed from his ship "on account of some irregularities arising from too free a circulation of the bottle." But he had received a promise of being reinstated, and, in high spirits at the prospect, dined one evening in March, 1809, at Stevens's Coffeehouse, in Bond Street. There he applied to Mr. Powell an offensive nickname. "He lost his life for a joke, and one too he did not make himself" (Medwin,
Conversations
, ed. 1825, p. 66). A challenge resulted. The parties met on Goldar's Green, and Falkland, mortally wounded, died two days later in Powell's house in Devonshire Place, on March 7, 1809. (
Annual Register
, vol. li. pp. 449, 450.) For a more detailed account, see
Gentleman's Magazine
for March, 1809. Both accounts give March 7 as the date of Falkland's death. A posthumous child was born to Lady Falkland. Byron stood godfather, and gave £500 at the christening.
Footnote 2:
Byron took his seat in the House of Lords, March 13, 1809. The delay was caused by the difficulty of proving the marriage of Admiral the Hon. John Byron with Miss Sophia Trevanion in the private chapel of Carhais. Probably Carlisle neither possessed nor withheld any information.
Footnote 3:
Byron had borrowed £1000 for his return to Cambridge in 1807: £200 from Messrs. Wylde and Co., bankers, of Southwell; and the remainder from the Misses Parkyns, and his great-aunt, the Hon. Mrs. George Byron. For this debt his mother made herself liable. No mortgage was given (see page 221,
2).
