Coleridge does not list a place of writing, though based on the contents of the letter and other letters written in this period, it was most likely written in London.
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 with postmarks: "Robert Southey, Esqre / Keswick / Cumberland." Under the address, Coleridge has written: "To be opened, if Mr S. be not at home by the family."
Describing his return journey to England; saying that, "[a]fter as sore a heartwasting as I believe ever poor creature underwent," he had landed near Lower Halstow in Kent, "a few hundred yards from a curious little Chapel, which being open and no one in it I hurried to -- & offered, I trust, as deep a prayer as ever without words or thoughts was sent up by a human Being"; saying that he was extremely ill throughout the entire course of the journey and only the Captain's kindness saved him: "Had not the Captain loved me as he often said better than a Brother, & performed all the offices of a Nurse, I could not have survived"; describing his fear of enemas; saying that he had purchased and brought an instrument with the understanding that he could adminster enemas to himself, but this proved not to be the case; saying that the Captain administered them and it took all his strength to do it; adding "Tho' as proud and Jealous an American as ever even America produced, he would come and even with tears in his eyes beg and pray me to have an enēma"; saying that as soon he arrived in England, health returned to him, "like the mountain waters upon the dry stones of a vale-stream after Rains," and he has been well ever since; describing one bad night, occasioned by drinking some stale beer; writing about his diet: "With great care, meat, potatoes, porter -- & dissolved meat once an hour so as always to keep off faintness, I shall do -- But whether it does, I live or die at home"; saying that he is now going to Charles Lamb's, that Daniel Stuart is in Margate and there is no one in town to advise him; describing his current state as "shirtless & almost penniless"; mentioning that his manuscripts are all either "in the Sea, or (as is the case with 9/10ths) carried back to Malta"; promising to write and saying "I will come as soon as I can come."