Coleridge: Darker Reflections. Richard Holmes
of confusion, & weakness, and manifest determination to let the French escape.” The French privateer captain hurled abuse from a nearby wall, but was stoically ignored. Leckie and Coleridge insisted that nothing should be done until the privateer’s papers were translated (from Italian) and properly examined the following day. At last order was restored, the French crew were put under guard at the Lazaretto, and Captain Skinner was removed to the safety of Leckie’s house.
Over the next two days Coleridge visited the Syracuse Governor, and disputed the privateer’s papers. He also drew up a long and vividly circumstantial account of the whole incident for Sir Alexander. It was soon clear that the prize and ransom money would not be released: the Governor “will acquit the Crew of Piracy, and suffer them to escape, and probably make a complaint against Mr Skinner”.
Coleridge quickly realized that it was now Captain Skinner who was in difficulties, having failed in his mission and being liable to reprimand in Malta. He therefore heavily weighted his report in Skinner’s favour, and volunteered to return to Valletta on L’Hirondelle to deliver the report in person. He wrote firmly: “It is but justice however to notice the coolness, dignity and good sense, with which Mr Skinner acted throughout the whole Business, and which formed an interesting Contrast to the noisy Imbecility of the Governor, and the brutal Insolence of the Commander of the Privateer.”98
This supportive action of Coleridge for the young captain, in such an unenviable situation, was never forgotten. It not only impressed Sir Alexander, it made him lasting friends among the whole circle of British naval officers on the Malta station for the rest of his stay. He was accepted, in their tight-knit circle, as “a friend in need”, who could be counted on. It was also noted among several American naval officers, temporarily stationed at Syracuse, among whom was the gallant Captain Stephen Decatur, famed for his recent exploit in blowing up the captured Philadelphia in Tripoli harbour (and later for his saying, “my country right or wrong”).
Decatur became one of Coleridge’s warmest admirers. Thus began a connection with Americans in the Mediterranean which had a lasting impact on his stay. Coleridge was back in Valletta on 8 November, and while in quarantine (for plague had been declared) completed his report, with nine documents annexed, for Sir Alexander. He concluded: “of course nothing further was to be done…and instead of going to Messina have returned to Malta, thinking, that I might be of some service perhaps to Captain Skinner in the explanation of the Business.”99
He returned to Sir Alexander’s congratulations, and glorious autumn weather, the trees “loaded with Oranges” and his health “very greatly improved in this heavenly climate”.100 He was paid four months’ back-salary of £100, and given a new set of rooms in the garrets of the Treasury building (now the Casino Maltese) with a decorated ceiling and huge windows “commanding a most magnificent view” of Valletta harbour. The ceiling depicted the Four Winds as baroque, curly-headed angels “spewing white smoke”, and whirling around a mariner’s compass in the middle.101 Coleridge would spend many hours in the coming months contemplating their navigational symbolism, and then gazing out over the sea with all its possible voyages.
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The first of these was no less than a trip to Russia and the Black Sea. One of Sir Alexander’s primary duties in the defence of Malta was to obtain corn supplies, and each spring he sent a special mission to purchase corn in Greece, Turkey and the Crimea. He now requested Coleridge to consider undertaking the 1805 mission, in company with a Captain Leake, departing in January for a round trip of three or four months. “The confidence placed in me by Sir A. Ball is unlimited…but it will be a most anxious business – as shall have the trust and management of 70, or 80 thousand pounds, while I shall not have for my toils & perils more than 3 or 4 hundred pounds, exclusive of all my expenses in travelling etc.” For the moment he was undecided.102
The Russian proposal finally forced Coleridge to turn to the question he had been avoiding for many months, not least at the bedside of Cecilia Bertozzi. What was he really doing in the Mediterranean? Did he intend to make a new life out there, to abandon once and for all the difficulties of his marriage, the affections of his children, the ambiguous dreams of happiness with Asra and the Wordsworths? Could he remake his career as a civil servant and diplomat, writing poetry and political reports, following Sir Alexander’s wartime star, drawing an ever-increasing salary, and settling in some exotic country villa shrouded in orange and lemon groves, waited upon by servants and some dusky, voluptuous Italian muse? Could this be a rebirth, a second life; or an ultimate self-abandonment, with the alluring demon of opium ever at his side?
It is clear that the answer hung in the balance for many weeks in the winter of 1804–5, and was not fully resolved until the following summer. But now for the first time he faced it. In a long letter of 12 December to his wife Sara, he set out the position. His health was radically improved, his work for the government was valuable and well paid, he could guarantee her an allowance of £100 a year and a continuance of his life assurance policy in her favour, as well as the £150 Wedgwood annuity. “I remain faithful to you and to my own Honour in all things.” He was “tranquil”, though never happy – “no visitations of mind or of fancy” – and he agonized always over his children – “My children! – my children!” – sometimes in “a flood of tears”. He had only agreed to consider the Russian mission “in a fit of Despair, when Life was a burthen to me”, and he would refuse it “on the whole, if I could get off with honour”. Yet all the same, he might stay in the Mediterranean, in Malta or Sicily or Sardinia. He admitted this in a sudden burst of explanation and self-contradiction, which well expressed his divided feelings.
If I could make up my mind to stay here, or to follow Sir A.B. in case that circumstances & changes in the political world should lead him to Sardinia, no doubt, I might have about £500 a year, & live mainly at the Palace. But O God! O God! if that, Sara! which we both know too well, were not unalterably my Lot, how gladly would I prefer the mere necessaries of Life in England, & these obtained by daily Effort. But since my Health has been restored to me, I have felt more than ever how unalterable it is!103
One wonders how Sara Coleridge would have understood this. Her wayward husband’s “unalterable lot” could be taken as simply a reference to his opium addiction, which had been known to her ever since 1801. Or it could be a darker admission, of Coleridge’s depression and unhappiness, his emotional incompatibility with her, and still obsessive love for Asra which made any true return and reunion impossible. Perhaps indeed the two elements were inextricably involved for him, and he was trying to get her to accept this. He concluded his letter with a formal assurance that “whatever & wherever I am” he would make it his “first anxiety and prominent Duty” to contribute to her happiness; and signed “most anxiously and affectionately, your Friend and more than Friend, S. T. Coleridge”. But it could not have been a reassuring letter to receive.104
Sitting up in his garret in the Treasury, gazing out at the “beautifully white sails of the Mediterranean (so carefully when in port put up into clean bags)”, Coleridge considered the same problem in the privacy of his Notebooks. He felt the “Quietness, Security within & without in Malta”.105 He valued the regularity, the naval comradeship among the officers, the smooth sequence of time and command, “the rings of Russet smoke from the evening Gun, at Valletta”.106 He was working; he was content; he saw a possible future for himself.
But was he happy? In a long, calm, reflective entry he considered it. “Days & weeks & months pass on; and now a year; and the sun, the Sea, the Breeze has its influences on me, and good and sensible men. – And I feel a pleasure upon me, & I