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1805–1806 “a prison & a grave” —18 june 1806 # Charlotte Smith’s last years were solitary, impoverished, and embattled. Someone else completedthe thirdvolume of her Historyof England . . . to a young lady at school because of her failing health. Two other works were published posthumously in 1807: her ¤nal volume of poetry, Beachy Head, and the last children’s book, The Natural History of Birds. Apart fromvisiting her sister at the old family seat, Bignor Park, she lived bedridden at home, crippled and beset with rheumatism, dropsy, and probably uterine cancer. In October 1805, she moved one last time, from Elsted to the even poorer town of Tilford near Farnham. In February 1806, Benjamin Smith died in debtors’ prison, substantiating her many assertions about his¶awed character. Six months later, Charlotte Smith herself died at Tilford. The few months of respite from his claims against her income were not enough to settle the entangled trust. Upon his death, she felt freer to describe his offenses , and so her last letters paint the darkest portrait of all. Her sons continued much as before: Lionel and George advanced in the military ,Nicholas sentpayments andgrandchildrenfromIndia, Williamhadnot written since his rift with his mother in 1800. Lucy and her three children were established in a small cottage at North Chapel near Petworth. Charlotte Mary, living with relatives, intervened as best she could in her mother’s quarrels with the earl of Egremont. Harriet had fewer and less alarming episodes of illness and became engaged to William Geary, a young man of the neighborhood , whom her mother admired. Lacking prospects, the couple could marry only after Charlotte Smith died, on the strength of settlements she had arranged . But also after her death, tragically in keeping with the family’s misfortunes , news came that George had died, as his mother feared, of yellow fever in Surinam. The Collected Letters of Charlotte Smith To an Unnamed Recipient Elsted. Jany 1st 1805 My Dear Madam, In Harriet’s absence, who is on a visit at some distance, and because the envellope of your Letter was directed to me, I open’d your obliging recollection of her & of meŒŒ I have many apologies to make for not having sooner return’d Sir Wm Jones. Nor should Harriet so long have detain’d those books you were so good as to lend her, but she has not been at home for above a week since you left Surrey, and I have been either absent or sick or so out of heart and hope that I had no courage to set about any thingŒŒ Thank God, I have heard that my Major1 was safe the 21st of September & had preserved his health till then, & mon tout a moi my youngest Son who had actually embarked for the West Indies, was by a sudden and very extraordinary change, disembarked & the Regiment are gone into Barracks about fourteen miles from Corke, & this, tho I know it to be only a transient reprieve , is a great releif to my spirits. 2 the cruelty and oppression he has suffer’d & besides the particular attention this has calld forth, he is as fond of his Mother as his Mother of him & is a pretty fellow to look at, which you know always has some in¶uence on Mamma’s vanity. He has now obtaind, tho only nineteen, an Adjutancy in the 96th. But all my hope has been to get a company for him, & that, in a Regiment not going to that detestable Country; & this, & some endeavours I have been using to procure Lionel’s removal from that hideous Surinam, would have occupied greater powers of application than my wretched health has left me & allowed me hardly any time to think of the pleasurable part of my reduced existence—the friends who honor me with their kind partiality. I shall send my Servant to Guildford in a few days & will take care your books shall be carefully conveyd thither for Albury, for I expect Harriet (who has lockd up some of them) home on ThursdayŒŒ I wish I could answer satisfactorily your enquiry about my having found an House. I have hardly made an sition lately because the period is arrived when I am in daily expectations of hearing from my Son Nicholas: & on his decision in regard to sending over his family, my movements must depend. I am extremely unwilling to go near London, but I must be where instruction can be had for the children with which I shall probably be instructed .3 Unless I can hear of a...

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