Henry Crabb Robinson, Bury St. Edmunds, to William Ayrton, [London], 15 April 1846.

My dear Ayrton

       I wish, provided nevertheless that you can do it within the compass of two sides of paper like this And within the space of from five to ten minutes, that you would inform me how matters stand and what are the prospects & designs of the F. A. double Esses Tomorrow will be the last meeting before the great Annual Assembly – I think it very doubtful whether the result of the next great meeting will not be to reestablish the declining power of the government. The oligarchy of officers – We have seen how large a body they were able to bring together on the late occasion And there is in this worlds affairs both great & small, a perpetual entanglement of private affections & petty interests which obdurate what otherwise [f. 82v] might be the salutary consequences of improved habits & higher principles You are an instance of this, who with more than an ordinary degree of public spirit have from a generous solicitude for the welfare of an old friend sufferd his interest to occupy the first place And the welfare of the F. A. S.’s the second. As, (to compare small things with great) lately in America the Pro-slavery party obtained the extension of slavery over a country as large as France, by a cunning entanglement of the Annexation of the huge Texas state with the question of the Tariff!!!

       I rejoice to see that there is still some chance for public liberty in Spain  And that the blood thirsty Narvaez may be ultimately defeated yet the Spaniards like the Americans & the Antiquaries are I fear not very much worth [f. 83r] our care – It seems at all events not quite so much as the cheesecake loving Isabella  Mr Polk and Rich: Carlyle – It is persons not principles who govern the world –

       I have found my brother very comfortable that is, he is quiescent, but the spring of his mind is broken. And tho’ to a stranger he may not seem alterd I find him not the same. But he is in his 77th year You & I have an old friend only in his 71st who occasions the same remark I fear –

       If you committed the indiscretion of reading this aloud so that one Scroop overheard you, he would whisper to his giggling Sister – He little thinks that we are perpetually saying in the intelligible dialect of the day – “You are another”!

       But I must not force you to turn over another leaf that would put you out of sorts I am sure

             With kind remembrance

                                    &c &c &c

                                                  faithfully yours

                                                             H. C. Robinson

Text: Aryton Collection, Add. MS. 52341, fol. 82, British Library.