Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ramsgate, to James Gillman, 1824 November 23 : autograph manuscript signed.

Relating details of a severe storm and a West Indian ship that had run aground on the Goodwin Sands; reporting that Mrs. Gillman's health is improving; adding "I shall come back, a free man : as far as books and publishers are concerned - and please God, I will starve, rather than send a sheet to the press or make any promise of so doing, till the whole Work, thoroughly revised and corrected, is sent along with it;" relating news of mutual friends whom he has seen in Ramsgate; relating news of two additional boats that had just crashed into the Pier in the storm and reporting on casualties; continuing to relate details of the wind and rain in the storm; adding, in a postscript, "40 m. after 3. I have this moment returned from the Pier - crash on crash! the accursed narrowness of that Harbour mouth - one small vessel crashing bow-sprit, and then flung out midway the mouth - A large ship at the same moment just missed the harbour. I had not nerve to stay - She instantly grounded with her bow-sprit towards the Pier - amid the roar & fury of the Billows - I got home with a deadly sickness at my stomach. I see them now, however, getting the poor sailors from the bow-sprit, with the crane-basket -. All with life will be saved, I trust; but the Ship will be in pieces on the waves. - God, grant! that the storm may abate before the Dark comes : for it will be double-darkness from the thickness of the air."