“I inclose two letters for your client, open, that you may be aware of their contents. My object in calling for a settlement of accounts is that I may receive the salary due to me, a current expense, and such as ought surely to be

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paid without putting me to the trouble of taking harassing legal measures to enforce it, and expose what ought to be kept secret. The other matter is more personal, and explains itself. Be assured that it is most painful to me to find myself drawn into so unpleasant a predicament, but constant insults and injuries admit of no medium course, and have determined me to hold no measures with a person unceasingly on the watch to turn every transaction to my prejudice.

“Yourself v. Taylor for breach of covenant. The defendant has pleaded that he never executed the deed of partnership; on this plea, therefore, there is no doubt but you must have a verdict, and the only question will be the amount of damages. This is a curious plea, after all his vapouring. Archdall kept the appointment, and gave his note of hand for 33l. 13s., payable at a guinea-and-a-half per month.”

“I had an interview for above an hour to-day with Mr. Frederick Pollock, and the inclination of his opinion is very strongly in favour of leaving all matters in difference to some mutual friend. I represented to him

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that Mr. Heriot and Mr. Clarke had been successively named and refused by Taylor, and that he had offered an arbitration only on some particular points, which, of course, could not be accepted. Mr. P. says, he thinks you stand at present in a more imposing position than ever, from having obtained the judgment against Taylor, and he does not seem to be very sanguine as to large damages. Though he admits, if even moderate damages were obtained, it would go a great way to settle with Taylor. He says as you have received no special damage by the speaking of the words, the damages will not be very great, but they would either stop his mouth, or pave the way to a much larger sum on a second offence. He discourages an indictment for perjury, and says it will utterly preclude, in his opinion, any arrangements, as a defendant in such a case generally answers to such a proposition, you have an indictment pending over me, and until that be fixed or settled some way or other, I cannot treat with you at all.

“My father and myself are to see Mr. Pollock to-morrow. If you could conveniently previously have an interview with my father (say two o’clock precisely) it would be quite as well.

“You might well apologise to Mrs. Taylor for your brutal insolence to her husband, but she despises you too much to care for your manners. She only wants you to do justice to her husband. You complain of provocation!!! Is not your absolute tyranny over my property a continued provocation to me? Is your conduct to be reconciled to any principle of justice, or any feeling of shame? You know you acquired your power by accident. You never paid a farthing towards it, but have drained it of a large sum. You know it is justly my own paper, yet will you permit me to have the least control over it? Do not you monopolise power in all directions? Might not I, living in

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the house, if I had a fair and just authority, he of the utmost service in forwarding the paper, when you, perhaps, are not out of your bed. Might not Mr. Carstairs, if any discretionary power were entrusted to him, prepare for publication early, render important service to the paper, and in doubtful cases should not I be at hand to assist him? People will not believe that any man could tyrannise over another man’s property, as you do over mine? Have you not, in many instances, brought discredit upon the paper? Must not everything that I write be submitted to your inspection, and, in spite of all the animosities which the practice has occasioned, to your additions or alterations? Sir, it is insolent to alter even the position of a comma of my writing. Do you not garble the productions of official correspondents, and set your narrow judgment and scanty knowledge against those who have official information? If this be not the most horrible provocation, what is? Yet you complain of provocation. You call me a beggar. You are then a beggar’s dependent, and live upon the credit of a beggar’s property. But beggar, as you call me, if I had not forborne to take my salary for two years, and Mr. Heriot for the same period, how would you have gained the 800l. which you took out of the concern, and which, according to a statement, which has been made out, you owe to the property at this moment, besides 131l. 5s. for French papers which you never procured, and 116l. for the law expenses occasioned by your breach of covenant in trespassing upon my department, in hiring writers without my permission? Have you not brought a man who received nothing but kindness from me, and from whom I have received written acknowledgments to that purpose—have you not brought him to insult me at the office? After coming shamefully late to the office, do you not make it often as a coffee-room

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and a gossiping mart, to the delay of publication, and to the injury, and nearly destruction, of the paper? Yet you presume to tell Mrs. Taylor of provocation. I most heartily pity your poor wife, for her afflictions must be heightened by the consideration that you bring all that she suffers on yourself by your conduct towards me. While you were responsible to others you seemed to have some plea, but you now are to be considered as responsible to me only. Is not your conduct arrogant, insolent, and oppressive to the highest degree? As you never could suppose that the arbitrators would confirm your assumed power, it might have been expected that you would have abated of your sovereignty by degrees. But have you relaxed at all? Thank God, I could never commit such conduct, or I should be as callous as you are to the opinions of mankind. If you had conducted yourself with any regard to my just rights, and like a gentleman, matters might have been harmoniously arranged between us. People who have known me all my life, know that I am far from being of a quarrelsome or unkind disposition; but they know that I am firm in the maintenance of my rights. I have a wife and son to support, and you are ruining the property which I hoped to be able to bequeath to them. Can you offer any one plea in favour of your conduct, or rather in palliation or excuse for it? and living upon the credit of my property as you do, and not permitting me to have any share in the management of it, dare you talk of provocation! Sir, do not give me much more provocation, for if you do, I will make a brief but emphatic statement to the world, and then I believe your right will soon be at an end. Reflect upon this letter before it is too late, and reform, otherwise, the Lord have mercy upon you.

“I have seen your answer to my note to Mr. Carstairs, and I still say that I do not believe a syllable you say or write, Your treatment of me is revolting to the feelings of everybody who hears of it, but your own wretched sycophants, who can be bribed to your cause by the play-house freedoms, which you find so useful. You told me, before Mr. Owen, that Mr. Canning ‘despised me for attempting to lessen your credit with him,’ and you told Mr. Owen that you had had a kind and friendly letter from Mr. Canning. I shall endeavour to ascertain both of these points, though I believe neither. When I told you that I should advise Mr. Freeling to return the manuscript which you took from Bellingham, and which ought to have been surrendered to the law, or to the widow, you said, ‘Mr. Freeling would laugh at me.’* If so, I shall certainly put him into a jocular mood, but I believe that he will not

* The annexed note on the subject will dispose of this foolery. “G. P. O., Thursday. “My dear Sir, “Nothing but overwhelming business could have prevented my thanking you expressly for the kindness which induced you to put the Bellingham Manuscript into my possession—I have never been insensible of your constant and unwearied regard to my gratification, of which your note of this morning affords another proof. “I can have no other objection than that which arises unaffectedly from the time and labour which it must cost you to add anything so valuable to what you have already so kindly bestowed. “Believe me, with the sincerest regards, “Yours always, “F. FREELING.”

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think that he has reason to rejoice in having sacrificed a friend whom he had known nearly thirty years, for a person with whom he casually became acquainted, because that person dedicated a sneaking, fawning address to him in a work to which he singly put his name as translator, though he was assisted by two others. I have made a minute of everything relating to your conduct, since you came to this place, and have most, if not all, of everything you have written to me. All shall in due time be promulged, and then it will be seen if you are a proper object for government protection. You know what I mean. I shall certainly file a bill in chancery against you, to require a knowledge of all you have received, if you have received anything, on account of the paper. I have made you several liberal proposals, which I have been told I was mad in offering, and you more mad in declining. You have never proposed a modification of your accidentally obtained and ill-exercised power, and your proposals to quit the concern have been so extravagant as to excite laughter. I once more ask you what sum you will take to abandon your connection with the paper? I expect your answer on Monday. But you must not regulate it by your estimate of ‘the patronage of the paper,’ which you have sometimes rated at three thousand, and sometimes at five thousand, pounds. This estimate will be a strong point in my account of your proceedings. You have often accused me of attempting to undermine your character—your character!!! I have stated nothing but facts, which can be proved by others, and God forbid that I should resort to needless and wanton exaggerations. Remember, I shall on Monday resort to you to know what sum you require to relinquish all connection with a property which you have nearly ruined.

“In answer to your note, I will accept one thousand pounds in full for salary (being now between five and six hundred pounds in arrear) and profits as a proprietor of the ‘Sun,’ and a well-secured annuity of two hundred pounds for my life. Upon these terms I will surrender all the rights I have in the ‘Sun’ newspaper. This letter is without prejudice to pending proceedings.

“It is very painful to be forced day after day to reply to the same sort of letters, especially after declining so positively as I have done the inconveniencies of your correspondence, and stating how decisively I had made up my mind to the line of conduct which it had become imperative on me to pursue. On the subject of the paper be assured I will notice no communication; and with regard to offers of purchase, sale, or reference, Mr. Gray will from this date be the proper organ. I have nothing to add but that I do not value your offer of an annuity while the ‘Sun’ is published, at 20l., and have no alteration to notice in my sentiments respecting the life annuity,

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in which, if you were sincere in what you said, I was accepting your own proposal.

“When I had the pleasure of meeting you sometime ago in the Argyle Booms, and complained to you of the treatment which I experienced from your friend, Mr. Jerdan, you said you thought he was right, and that in the same situation you should act in the same manner. Now as I shall ‘be glad to learn of abler men,’ I should esteem it a great favour if you would let me know upon what principle of morality and common justice, to say nothing of religion, you would justify such treatment, from one who is not the proprietor of a single share of the ‘Sun’ newspaper, to one who is the proprietor of nine-tenths,

“I beg leave to thank you for your recent critique on ‘Coriolanus;’ but I fear it is much too sublime and poetical for ordinary readers, and may be misconstrued into bombast and turgidity by the vulgar—‘Caviare to the million.’

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“I forgot, I fear, to tell you that I in vain attempted to obtain a written acknowledgment from Mr. Jerdan of your claim upon him for letters written from Paris, though, as I learned from you, he had repeatedly promised to give one. But this is one of the features of his conduct which shall be properly noticed in due time and place.