The letter is undated. In the Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Griggs states that the letter from Southey that spurred this one arrived at Nether Stowey on August 8, 1799, and proposes that Coleridge's response was written and sent (along with a letter from Thomas Poole dated August 8th) almost immediately. See the published edition of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
This collection, MA 1848, is comprised of 92 letters from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Robert Southey, written between 1794 and 1819. See the collection-level record for more information (MA 1848.1-92).
This letter is from the Joanna Langlais Collection, a large collection of letters written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to various recipients. The collection has been divided into subsets, based primarily on Coleridge's addressees, and these sub-collections have been cataloged as MA 1848-1857.
Address panel: "Mr Southey."
Saying that he had written a long letter to Southey and sent it to Minehead, but given the present state of Southey's feelings, he thinks it was "neither wise or delicate" and he will suppress it; stating, "calmly and on my honor as a man & gentleman," that he never "charged you with aught but your deep & implacable enmity towards me -- & that I founded this on the same Authorities, on which you founded your belief of my supposed Hatred to you"; saying that Poole, with whom he has shared all his thoughts for the past three years, and Wordsworth, with whom he often talked of Southey, can be his witnesses that he has "ever thought & spoken of you with respect & affection, never charging you with aught else than your restless enmity to me, & attributing even that to Delusion"; mentioning evidence Southey has received to the contrary and written testimonies he could summon that would contradict accusations Southey made in his letter, but saying "Yet on my soul I believe you -- I do not require you to do at present the same with regard to me"; asking of Southey "let us be at least in the possibility of understanding each other's moral Being -- / and with regard to what you have heard, to think a little on the state of mind in which those were from whom you heard it"; thanking him for his letter, "which under your Convictions was a wise & temperate one" and concluding "God bless you, & your's!"