Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Maps
- Preface
- Author's Note
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Part I Scotland: Border Farm to Literary Edinburgh (1789–1820)
- Part II The Cape Frontier: Pioneer, Settler Leader (1820–1821)
- Part III Cape Town and Genadendal: The Stand Against Power (1822–1825)
- 8 Westward
- 9 ‘An Arrant Dissenter’
- 10 Vale of Grace
- 11 On the Frontier: the Final Year
- Part IV The Frontier, Karroo: Rural Retreat and the ‘Great Cause’ (1825–1826)
- Part V London Literary Life and The Anti-Slavery Campaign (1826–1833)
- Part VI Scotland and Highgate A Poet Returns to his Roots and Last Works (1830–1834)
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - ‘An Arrant Dissenter’
from Part III - Cape Town and Genadendal: The Stand Against Power (1822–1825)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Maps
- Preface
- Author's Note
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Part I Scotland: Border Farm to Literary Edinburgh (1789–1820)
- Part II The Cape Frontier: Pioneer, Settler Leader (1820–1821)
- Part III Cape Town and Genadendal: The Stand Against Power (1822–1825)
- 8 Westward
- 9 ‘An Arrant Dissenter’
- 10 Vale of Grace
- 11 On the Frontier: the Final Year
- Part IV The Frontier, Karroo: Rural Retreat and the ‘Great Cause’ (1825–1826)
- Part V London Literary Life and The Anti-Slavery Campaign (1826–1833)
- Part VI Scotland and Highgate A Poet Returns to his Roots and Last Works (1830–1834)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The mischief that was Pringle's undoing might already have been foreseen, though Fairbairn was to survive it. For Pringle wrote to Scott, before sending off his effective letter to Fairbairn, that, despite Colonel Bird's having tried hard to obtain for him
the appointment of Superintendent of the Govt. Press … and to this he had almost succeeded but for an unlucky circumstance which it appears had prejudiced Lord Charles against me. Some person has informed him (or perhaps he has imagined from seeing my name, much to my regret, mentioned in newspapers and magazines) that I am a violent Whig and formerly a supporter of the democrat press (as it is called) in Scotland…
The identity of the ‘some person’ who had given Lord Charles the idea that Pringle was ‘a violent Whig’ became clear to him. He wrote to Sir George Mackenzie in Edinburgh on 25 June 1823, the day before Fairbairn had sailed From Gravesend: ‘Though I keep myself cautiously aloof from all political or party discussions I have the misfortune of being grievously suspected of being a Whigg’, for which he blamed Capt Fox for labelling him ‘a good staunch Whigg’ at the Governor‘s table.
Charles Fox, who had transferred to the 15th Foot, sailed from Table Bay in August 1822, shortly before the Pringles and Janet Brown had arrived in Cape Town from Glen Lynden. A bitter irony for Pringle it was that, again, a good friend had done him serious harm: Hogg, perhaps with a touch of malice in the mischief he had made with both The Poetic Mirror misattribution and, far worse, initiating the ‘Chaldee MS’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Thomas PringleSouth African pioneer, poet and abolitionist, pp. 121 - 131Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012