To James Madison from George Joy, 4 February 1824
From George Joy
London 4th Febry 1824.
No 12 Paper Buildings, Temple.
Dear sir,
This paper has met with an accident, but I cannot find a new one. They are all bought up; which is not unfrequently the case on the opening of Parliament. It has led my eye however to an Article, which I should not have noticed, after reading through the Debates. I think I wrote you some time ago of little Moore’s Conversion. Whether this is from himself or not I have not yet learned; neither have I ever seen the Review to which it refers.1 Some of my friends would have me take up the Cudgels against the Revilers—particularly the quarterly; but I refer them all to “England & America” in one of the numbers of the North American Review,2 after which I think silent Contempt is the best antidote to their poison. I hope you will be satisfied with Lord Lansdown & Mr: Brougham in the passages I have marked;3 and remain, very respectfully, Dear sir, Your friend & Servt
G. Joy
RC (DLC).
1. In the 4 Feb. 1824 London Times, to which Joy referred, was this item: “In the first number of the Westminster Review, just published, there is an article upon a late work of Mr. Moore’s, in which the writer says, ‘Mr. Moore has resided in America, and, we understand, speaks of the Americans with unbounded dislike and contempt.’ In this assertion, we can confidently state the writer is entirely mistaken. Whatever opinions opinions Mr. Moore may have hastily formed when a very young man, with respect to the character and institutions of the Americans, we know that he has long since learned to correct them.” For the poet Thomas Moore, see , 2:452, 454 n. 7.
2. Joy referred here to a review of “On the complaints in America against the British Press. An Essay in the New London Monthly Magazine for February, 1821,” which appeared under the title “England and America” in the North American Review 13 (1821): 20–47.
3. The London Times of 4 Feb. 1824 featured the reception in Parliament of the King’s speech given the previous day. Commenting in the House of Lords, the Marquess of Lansdowne expressed his regret that the affairs of South America had been “touched upon so very slightly,” adding that “if we had been tardy on this occasion, it was a proud satisfaction to think that America had, … taken that decisive step well becoming its power, its greatness, and its freedom.” In the same issue of the newspaper, reporting on the debates in the House of Commons, Henry Brougham made extensive remarks on a number of issues covered in the King’s speech, including Ireland, British foreign relations, and South America.