134 — To his Mother
Smyrna, April 10, 1810.
Dear Mother, — To-morrow, or this evening, I sail for Constantinople in the
Salsette
frigate, of thirty-six guns.
She
returns to England with our ambassador
, whom she is going up on purpose to receive. I have written to you short letters from Athens, Smyrna, and a long one from Albania. I have not yet mustered courage for a second large epistle, and you must not be angry, since I take all opportunities of apprizing you of my safety; but even that is an effort, writing is so irksome.
I have been traversing Greece, and Epirus, Illyria, etc., etc., and you see by my date, have got into Asia. I have made but one excursion lately to the ruins of Ephesus. Malta is the rendez-vous of my letters, so address to that island.
Mr
. Hanson has not written, though I wished to hear of the Norfolk sale
, the Lancashire law-suit, etc., etc., I am anxiously expecting fresh remittances.
I
believe you will like Nottinghamshire, at least my share of it
. Pray accept my good wishes in lieu of a long letter, and believe me,
Yours sincerely and affectionately,
Byron
.
Footnote 1:
Robert (afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Robert) Adair (1763-1855), son of Sergeant-Surgeon Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel, described by an Austrian aristocrat as "le fils du plus grand
Seigneur d'Angleterre
," was educated at Westminster and the University of Gottingen. At the latter place Adair, always, as his kinsman Lord Albemarle said of him, "an enthusiastic admirer of the fair sex" (
Recollections
, vol. i. p. 229), fell in love with his tutor's daughter. He did not, however, marry "Sweet Matilda Pottingen," but Angélique Gabrielle, daughter of the Marquis d'Hazincourt. He is supposed to have contributed to the
Rolliad
; and the "Dedication to Sir Lloyd Kenyon," "Margaret Nicholson" (
Political Eclogues
, p. 207), and the "Song of Scrutina" (
Probationary Odes
, p. 285), have been attributed to him. He, however, denied (Moore's
Journal and Correspondence
, vol. ii. p. 304) that he wrote any part of the
Rolliad
. A Whig, and an intimate friend and follower of Fox, he was in 1791 at St. Petersburg, where the Tories believed that he had been sent by his chief on "half a mission" to intrigue with Russia against Pitt. The charge was published by Dr. Pretyman, Bishop of Winchester, in his
Life of Pitt
(1821), who may have wished to pay off old scores, and to retaliate on one of the reputed authors of the
Rolliad
for the "Pretymaniana," and was answered in
Two Letters from Mr. Adair to the Bishop of Winchester
. It is to this accusation that Ellis and Frere, in the
Anti-Jacobin
, refer in "A Bit of an Ode to Mr. Fox" (
Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin
, edit. 1854, pp. 71-73):—
"I mount, I mount into the sky,
Sweet bird, to Petersburg I'll fly,
Or, if you bid, to Paris.
Fresh missions of the Fox and Goose
Successful Treaties may produce,
Though Pitt in all miscarries."
Sir James Mackintosh, speaking of the story, told Moore (
Journals and Correspondence
, vol. iv. p. 267) that a private letter from Adair, reporting his conversations with a high official in St. Petersburg, fell into the hands of the British Government; that some members of the Council were desirous of taking proceedings upon it; but that Lord Grenville and Pitt threatened to resign, if any use was made of such a document so obtained. (See also the "Translation of a Letter from Bawba-Dara-Adul-Phoola," etc. —
i. e.
"Bob Adair, a dull fool" — in the
Anti-Jacobin
, p. 208.) Adair was in 1806 sent by Fox as Ambassador to Vienna, and in 1809 was appointed by Canning Ambassador Extraordinary at Constantinople, where, with Stratford Canning as his secretary, he negotiated the Treaty of the Dardanelles. For his services, on his return in 1810, he was made a K.C.B. He was subsequently (1831-35) employed on a mission to the Low Countries, when war appeared imminent between William, Prince of Orange and King Leopold. He was afterwards sworn a member of the Privy Council, and received a pension. George Ticknor (
Life
, vol. i. p. 269), who met him at Woburn in 1819, speaks of his great conversational charms, and Moore (
Journals and Correspondence
, vol. vii. p. 216) describes him, in 1838, as a man "from whom one gets, now and then, an agreeable whiff of the days of Fox, Tickell, and Sheridan." Many years after Fox's death, Adair was at a fête at Chiswick House. "'In which room,' he asked of Samuel Rogers, 'did Fox expire?' 'In this very room,' I replied. Immediately, Adair burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ever saw exhibited by a man" (
Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers
, p. 97).
cross-reference: return to Footnote 4 of Letter 137
Footnote 2:
The sale of Wymondham and other property in Norfolk, which had come to him through his great-uncle.
Footnote 3:
Probably an allusion to his mother leaving Burgage Manor and taking up her residence at Newstead.
