Editing Thomas Moore (section)

==Travels and family==
===Observations of America and duel with critic===
In the hope of future advancement, Moore reluctantly sailed from London in 1803 to take up a government post secured through the favours of [[Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira.]] Lord Moira was a man distinct in his class for having, on the eve of the rebellion in Ireland, continued to protest against government and loyalist outrages,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Curtin |first1=Nancy |title=The United Irishmen: Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin, 1791–1798 |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-820736-8 |page=217}}</ref> and to have urged a policy of conciliation.<ref>Dickson, Charles (1997), ''Revolt in the North, Antrim and Down in 1798'', London, Constable, {{ISBN|0094772606}}, p. 103</ref> Moore was to be the registrar of the [[Admiralty court|Admiralty Prize Court]] in [[Bermuda]]. Although as late as 1925 still recalled as "the poet laureate" of the island, Moore found life on Bermuda sufficiently dull that after six months he appointed a deputy and left for an extended tour of North America.<ref name="Harry White">{{cite web |last1=White |first1=Harry |title=Moore, Thomas |url=https://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a5948&searchClicked=clicked&quickadvsearch=yes |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |publisher=Royal Irish Academy |access-date=18 August 2020}}</ref> 

As in London, Moore secured high-society introductions. But of many of his hosts he had a low opinion including, with reports of a slave mistress ([[Sally Hemings]]), of President [[Thomas Jefferson]]: "The weary statesman for repose has fled/ From the halls of council to his negro shed . . . / And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace!"<ref name=":5">{{Cite news |last=Montague |first=John |date=April 26, 2008 |title=The Man and his Melodies |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/2008/0426/Pg049.html#Ar04900 |work=The Irish Times |pages=49}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=Ronan |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Bard_of_Erin/YtaqRhv1oQYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Ronan+Kelly,+Erin's+Bard,&pg=PT98&printsec=frontcover |title=Bard of Erin: The Life of Thomas Moore |date=2009 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-103134-7 |language=en}}</ref> Moore later conceded that, having consorted too closely in America with émigré European aristocrats and their friends among the opposition [[Federalist Party|Federalists]], he had developed a somewhat "tainted", somewhat partisan, view of the new republic.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /> United Irish exiles, among them Robert Emmet's brother, [[Thomas Addis Emmet]], a prominent [[Abolitionism|abolitionist]],<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=Thomas Addis Emmet |url=https://history.nycourts.gov/figure/thomas-addis-emmet/ |access-date=2023-01-10 |website=Historical Society of the New York Courts |language=en-US}}</ref> were in Jefferson's [[Democratic-Republican Party|Democratic-Republican]] camp.<ref name=":16">{{Cite thesis |last=MacGiollabhui |first=Muiris |title=Sons of Exile: The United Irishmen in Transnational Perspective 1791–1827 |publisher=UC Santa Cruz (Thesis) |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75x28210 |pages= |year=2019}}</ref> 

Following his return to England in 1804, Moore published ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Epistles_Odes_and_Other_Poems/z4K5zStZqO8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems]'' (1806). In addition to complaints about America and Americans, this catalogued Moore's real and imagined escapades with American women. [[Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey|Francis Jeffrey]] denounced the volume in the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' (July 1806), calling Moore "the most licentious of modern versifiers", a poet whose aim is "to impose corruption upon his readers, by concealing it under the mask of refinement."<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /> Moore challenged Jeffrey to a duel but their confrontation was interrupted by the police. In what seemed to be a "pattern" in Moore's life ("it was possible to condemn [Moore] only if you did not know him"), the two then became fast friends.<ref name=":8" />{{rp|14}}

Moore, nonetheless, was dogged by the report that the police had found that the pistol given to Jeffrey was unloaded. In his satirical ''[[English Bards and Scotch Reviewers]]'' (1809), [[Byron]], who had himself been stung by one of Jeffrey's reviews, suggested Moore's weapon was also "leadless": "on examination, the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants, were found to have evaporated". To Moore, this was scarcely more satisfactory, and he wrote to Byron implying that unless the remarks were clarified, Byron, too, would be challenged. In the event, when Byron, who had been abroad, returned there was again reconciliation and a lasting friendship.<ref name=":6" />{{rp|139-147}}<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

In 1809, Moore was elected as a member to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in [[Philadelphia]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Thomas+moore&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2 April 2021|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

===Marriage and children===
Between 1808 and 1810, Moore appeared each year in [[Kilkenny]], Ireland, with a charitable mixed repertory of professional players and high-society amateurs. He favoured [[comedy (drama)|comic roles]] in plays like [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Sheridan]]'s ''[[The Rivals]]'' and [[John O'Keeffe (Irish writer)|O'Keeffe]]'s ''[[The Castle of Andalusia]]''.<ref name=":6" />{{rp|170-175}} Among the professionals, on stage in Kilkenny with her sister, the tragedienne-to-be [[Mary Ann Duff]], was Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke.<ref name=norton>Joseph Norton Ireland: ''Mrs. Duff'' (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1882).</ref> In 1811, Moore married Bessy in [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]], London. Together with Bessy's lack of a dowry, the Protestant ceremony may have been the reason why Moore kept the match for some time secret from his parents. Bessy shrank from fashionable society to such an extent that many of her husband's friends never met her (some of them jokingly doubted her very existence). Those who did held her in high regard.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

The couple first set up house in London, then in the country at [[Kegworth]], [[Leicestershire]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |url=http://victorian-studies.net/Moore.html |access-date=20 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Bloy |first=Marjorie |title=Biography: Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |url=http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/moore-t.htm |access-date=20 November 2020 |website=A Web of English History}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2 December 2011 |title=House historian: Vicars, framework knitters and a poet |url=https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/country-houses-for-sale-and-property-news/house-historian-vicars-framework-knitters-and-a-poet-14961 |access-date=20 November 2020 |website=Country Life}}</ref> and in Lord Moira's neighbourhood at Mayfield Cottage in [[Staffordshire]], and finally in Sloperton Cottage in [[Wiltshire]] near the country seat of another close friend and patron, [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne]]. Their company included Sheridan and [[John Philpot Curran]], both in their bitter final years.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Webb |first=Alfred |date=1878 |title=John Philpot Curran – Irish Biography |url=https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/JohnPhilpotCurran.php |access-date=9 February 2023 |website=www.libraryireland.com}}</ref>

Thomas and Bessy had five children, none of whom survived them. Three girls died young, and both sons lost their lives as young men. One of them, Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, as a lowly officer fought first with the British Army in [[First Anglo-Afghan War|Afghanistan]], and then with [[French Foreign Legion]] in [[French Algeria|Algeria]]. He was dying of tuberculosis that riddled the family when, according to Foreign Legion records, he was killed in action on 6 February 1846.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20557536 | jstor=20557536 | title=Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, Son and Legionnaire | last1=Ryan | first1=George E. | journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua | year=1998 | volume=2 | issue=3 | pages=117–126 | doi=10.1353/nhr.1998.a926632 }}</ref>
Despite these heavy personal losses, the marriage of Thomas Moore is generally regarded to have been a happy one.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

===Debt exile, last meeting with Byron===
In 1818, it was discovered that the man Moore had appointed his deputy in Bermuda had embezzled 6,000 [[pounds sterling]], a large sum for which Moore was liable. To escape [[debtor's prison]], in September 1819, Moore left for France, travelling with [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]] (future Whig [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]] and editor of Moore's journals and letters). In [[Venice]] in October, Moore saw Byron for the last time. Byron entrusted him with a manuscript for his memoirs, which, as his literary executor, Moore promised to have published after Byron's death.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maurois |first1=André |author-link1=André Maurois |translator-last1=Miles |translator-first1=Hamish |year=1984 |orig-year=1930 |title=Byron |location=London |publisher=Constable |pages=331–332 |isbn=0-09-466010-7 }}</ref>

In Paris, Moore was joined by Bessy and the children. His social life was busy, often involving meetings with Irish and British and travellers such as [[Maria Edgeworth]] and [[William Wordsworth]]. However, his attempt to bridge the gulf in his connections between his exiled fellow countrymen and members of the British establishment was not always successful. In 1821, several emigres, prominent among them [[Myles Byrne]] (a veteran of [[Battle of Vinegar Hill|Vinegar Hill]] and of Napoleon's [[Irish Legion]]) refused to attend a [[Saint Patrick's Day|St Patrick's day]] dinner Moore had organised in Paris because of the presiding presence of Wellesley Pole Long, a nephew of the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thomas Moore – Irish Paris|url=http://www.irishmeninparis.org/composers-and-musicians/thomas-moore|access-date=23 March 2021|website=www.irishmeninparis.org}}</ref>

Once Moore learned the Bermuda debt had been partly cleared with the help of Lord Lansdowne (whom Moore repaid almost immediately by a draft on Longman, his publisher), the family, after more than a year, returned to Sloperton Cottage.