ABSTRACT
An incomplete version of this poem had been drafted by winter 1811–12, when S. sent 49 lines (BL Add. MS 37496 f. 80v) from Keswick to Elizabeth Hitchener in a letter postmarked 20 January 1812 (see note to stanza 1), but it was later revised and expanded as a broadsheet, probably in Barnstaple in July or August. At the end of June the S.’s had moved to Lynmouth where S. immediately began distributing propaganda. His landlady’s niece, Mrs Mary Blackmore, told Mathilde Blind in 1871 (Trinity College, Dublin, Dowden Papers R.4.37):
… he had a number of papers printed at Barnstaple, & when they came home he had me in to cut the printer’s name off… He would then send his man, who was an Irishman called Daniel Healy, to Barnstaple with some of these papers to stick up about the town. The man was taken up afterwards & imprisoned for six months. The next day Mr S was sent for & on his arrival he asked the servant how he came to stick the papers up, & how he came by them; he said in his Irish accent, Sure & faith your honour I met the gentleman on the bridge, & he gave them me & told me to stick them up, & I thought it no harm. Mr S asked him how he came to be so foolish, & gave him one of the papers to read, & he held it upside down… This man was very fond of his master, & I have heard him say repeatedly that he would go through fire & water for him.
