Two letters to the Right Hon. Earl Eldon, Lord Chancellor, &c. &c. &c. : with official and other documents

Preface

London, May 6, 1827.

The two following Letters would have been submitted to the public months ago — but I purposely refrained from publishing them, that I might exhaust every effort to effect a reconciliation with my family, which would have rendered family disclosures unnecessary.* I pressed this conviction with the greatest earnestness. I would willingly have consented tp sacrifices that must have materially weakened my case before the House of Lords. I have been unsuccessful in all my endeavours. I am compelled, therefore, to proceed to my Appeal, without receiving that countenance and support from the different members of my family, which I had a right to expect, and which I have so anxiously laboured to obtain.

W. L. W

* Vide Correspondence in Appendix.

VI

The Appeal to the House of Lords being again postponed, and malignant falsehoods continuing to be propagated without contradiction from those whose duty it ought to be to support a member of their own family, I am left but the alternative I now take to defend my character, and which I have so long delayed.

Every considerate mind will appreciate the sufferings I must undergo in thus bringing under public consideration delicate subjects appertaining to private life. That the domestic concerns of so humble an individual as myself should occupy public attention at all, to me causes both regret and astonishment ; but my private affairs having been made matter of public discussion, I have carried the history of that private life in the following pages much further than my enemies have dared.

If these pages do not set forth demonstrative truth, I must be fitter to become the inhabitant of a lunatic asylum than to remain at large, resolved as a man of honour to contend, by nil the most public means within my power, for my right to continue to hold that station in society whicb no act of mine has caused me to forfeit.

In

Vll

In beg to be understood as not advocating

the cs i I paid damages in the Court of Com-

mon gards it, according to the laws of this

count suredly guilty, under most extenuating

circumstances, which, for the sake of saving some hundred pounds, I did not choose in full to set forth, but which I shall be justified in bringing to light, if attempts continue to be made, in secret, to wound my honour by those who ought to protect it.

W. L. W.

TH EARL ELDON,

LORD CHANCELLOR,

Sfc. Sfc. Sfc.

LETTER I. My Lord

I have determined to avail myself of your Lordship's earnest recommendation to appeal to the House of Peers ; and, had I wanted, which I did not, any incentive to such an appeal, I should have found it in that anxiety, so frequently evinced by your Lordship, to have your judgment submitted to a higher tribunal. I have imputed that anxiety to some doubts in your Lordship's mind, as to the soundness of your decision, both as it regarded the power of interference and the exercise of it ; for had there been no possibility of doubt, had your Lordship been convinced that no other man, and no other tribunal could have come to any other conclusion, you would hardly have pressed upon me a course which could have had no other effect than that of involving me in fresh and hopeless expense, and

B of exposing me to fresh anguish and disappointment.

But whilst I am pressing the r*visal of my own case, I feel that I am advocating one of the greatest and most constitutional questions that ever came before the House of Lords. A precedent has been set, through me, for an alarming interference between a Father and Child ! It is for the House of Lords to decide— 1st, whether such a power does really exist? 2dly, whether, if it do exist, it ought to be confirmed, or abolished ? and 3dly, whether such a case has been made out as to justify its exercise against me? Having determined upon making the appeal, it appeared to be indispensably necessary to submit the present letter to your Lordship, that your Lordship might have an opportunity of re-considering the grounds of your decision, and of reflecting whether your Lordship has not viewed the subject in a different light from that in which it ought to have been viewed ; whether you have not relied too much upon evidence which was liable to the greatest suspicion ; and whether you could come to the trial of such a case totally free from all bias, having in the outset pronounced a decision against me, by ordering that my children should remain in the custody of the Misses Long; rejecting my application for their being restored to me, and thus declaring prima facie that I was unfit to be their guardian.

My pith Miss Long- took place in

the yea was agreed upon between that

lady a without the advice, interven-

tion, o wledgeof the relations on either

side. r was scarcely even acquainted

with a y family. The terms of our mar-

riage settlement were, in the first instance, to have been arranged by an old gentleman of the name of Barry, who had been resident apothecary to the late Sir James Long, and was much in the confidence of the late Lady Catherine, and the Misses Long. He is a man of sectarian principles, and a great collector of sectarian tracts, (it was tracts of this nature which I was in the habit of burning after my marriage, not because they were religious, but because they were wild, fanatic, and not in accordance with the true spirit of Christianity) with which he supplied the different members of the family. With this gentleman I was desired to communicate upon the terms of the marriage settlement.

He proposed that I should receive from Mrs. Wellesley an annuity of £'10,000, and that the Tylney estates, over which Miss Long had suffered recoveries, and had obtained the fee simple, should be re-settled according to the limitation of the Long estates, giving to the Misses Long the remainder of those estates, in the event of there being no male issue of the marriage.

To these terms I objected at once : and repreb 2 senting to Miss Long their injurious tendency to herself, she acknowledged the justice of my objections, and desired me to submit the outline of an arrangement, after consulting her solicitor, Mr. Bullock.

I declined suggesting any terms, but requested the advice and assistance of Sir Vicary Gibbs, the Attorney-General on my own part, whilst I insisted that Miss Long should desire the interference of Sir William Scott, now Lord Stowell, to protect her interests : nor would I allow her to execute her marriage settlement, until I was satisfied she was fully acquainted with the provisions of that settlement, as explained to her by Lord Stowell.

From the day of my marriage to the period of Mrs. Wellesley's death, I never allowed her to join with me in the execution of any securities for the raising of money, which she was not bound to execute by the provisions of her marriage settlement : and I rejected all her offers to do so.

I was totally ignorant of her having made a will, until I was made acquainted with it by a lady to whom she communicated the fact ; so far was I from having any knowledge of it, that upon her decease I wrote to Charles Yerbury, Esq., who had the care of the records of my estates, to search among them for a will. His answer was, that he had found among those pa }f an unexecuted will,

frc jd that no will existed,

uni mmunication to which

I v alluded. The will was in

the possession of Mr. Sidebotham, the conveyancer, who had witnessed its execution by the testatrix, and who had very minutely explained to her all its provisions, and its remotest possible effects.

During the minority of Mrs. Wellesley, and after her coming of age, Lady Catherine and the Misses Long received from Mrs. Wellesley, gratuitously, very large sums of money, as an acquittance for which, they were, after the arrangements of the marriage settlement were made, to have transferred to Mrs. Wellesley and myself, their portions of £10,000 each, charged upon the Long estates ; but no deeds to that effect appear to have been executed. It was, therefore, not without much surprise, that a few years after my marriage, I was called upon to pay these young ladies their portions ; when they claimed £15,000 each, together with interest, on the gross sum, making the whole amount to nearly £40,000.

Upon a reference to the Earl of Shaftsbury to decide between us, I paid the money, which was raised by way of mortgage, with the additional security of my own bond.

Before this period, I became a candidate, not only with the approbation, but at the request of Mrs. Wellesley and her family, to represent the county of Wilts, in which I succeeded, at an expense of not less than between £30,000 and £40,000.

About a year and a half afterwards, I found that I had been robbed to an enormous amount by the person who had the controul and management of my large expenditure at Wanstead, for upwards of three years. No satisfactory account could be obtained from this man, for he had become mad, and died in a private mad-house. The debt in which this man involved me, amounted to about £50,000. I am not apologizing for my own neglect ; I am only stating facts which led to subsequent embarrassments.

As soon as I was convinced of the amount of this debt, I convened the greater part of the creditors, and offered to give them security upon my personal property at Wanstead, for what should appear, upon a proper examination, to be due to them.

This arrangement has been called the Wanstead deed ; the obligations consequent upon it have been fulfilled since my return to England, although it was attempted to be impressed upon your Lordship's mind that the contrary was the fact, and that the debts, so far from having been paid, had only been met by a temporary arrangement. It was this deed that was submitted to a court s validity was acknowledged at

the as lelmsford ; and the judge* who

tried 1 omplimented me upon the hono-

rable : ich had dictated its execution.

I e: s deed at Calais, contrary to ad-

vice g ^hich was, that being abroad, and

having the power, I ought to make the arrangement to the extent of securing my property against my creditors, instead of giving it, as I did, in security for their debts. And I have fulfilled to the letter, not only every provision I ever made with persons~with whom I have had money dealings, but every pecuniary obligation, however injurious to my interests, to which others under my authority had bound me.

I know not whether I ought to answer the absurd charge of having left England from inability to pay some tallow-chandler's or grocer's bill. Those who made it know it to be false : they know the fact to be, that, immediately after I had made the proposal to my creditors to give them my personal security, and before the Wanstead deed, which I executed at Calais, had been prepared, information was conveyed to me, that a writ, upon the bond for £40,000, raised for the purpose of paying the Misses Long's portions, had been issued against me, and I was in hourly expectation of being arrested. This was the cause of my repairing to the continent, where I remained two years, during which time I had reason

* I believe Chief Justice Dallas.

to be extremely dissatisfied with the manner in which my affairs had been managed during my absence. So improperly had they betn managed, that I found my return to England to be immediately and imperiously necessary. And this imposes upon me the duty of stating the particulars of an event, which, had not every action of my life been wilfully misrepresented, I flattered myself could never have been alluded to but in terms of commendation.

His Majesty was applied to, to permit my holding an office in his court, which would relieve me from personal molestation. He was graciously pleased to express himself with personal kindness towards me; and he added, that if he could receive an assurance that my desire to fill that office, was merely for the purpose of making a more speedy settlement with my creditors, he would permit me to hold it ; but if I wished to possess the office for the purpose of setting my creditors at defiance, his Majesty would by no means be a party to any such arrangement. His Majesty was satisfied that I had no such intention, and the office was conferred upon me. Whilst, however, I was in possession of it, T was arrested by a man of the name of Timberlake, for a debt of some hundred pounds, which I had directed my agent to dispute. Without availing myself of the privilege which my office vested in me, I paid the debt ; and some reports having reached me, which tended to induce a belief that his Majesty's i y misunderstood, I deemed

i d duty on my part, to sur-

r he hands of his Majesty.

1 Mian never, nowever, cease to remember without the deepest gratitude, his Majesty's kindness and favour, of which, I trust, I did not shew myself insensible.

I remained in England so long as was necessary to put my affairs into a train of settlement, and then retired to the continent, in order to wait its progress and termination.

It was then that I solicited the assistance of my father, but I executed no trust deed to preserve my property against my creditors, nor did I ever execute such a trust ; I gave a simple power of attorney, fixing for my expenditure abroad,

per annum, to which Mrs. Wellesley was

no party. My letters, reluctantly produced by the Misses Long, prove my sentiments relative to Mrs, Wellesley's pin money, which always remained free, and at her own disposal, and which she claimed, as she had a perfect right to do, though the right was enforced at a moment of the greatest inconvenience to myself. However, the money was immediately paid ; and although the Misses Long have studiously kept from me all the papers and documents, which they seized and secreted from me, to whom they devolved of right, at the decease of Mrs. Wellesley (as appears by the annexed correspondence), I have, nevertheless, been abe to secure some papers and docn* merits, from which I have derived §&pofs, that, before my marriage, Lady Catherine and the Misses Long, received a sum of money amounting

to £ , £40,000 of which came into the hands

of Mr. Barry ; the larger part whereof he received from a transfer of stock ; and he informed Mrs. Wellesley that, having converted that stock into bank notes, he had sewed them into his clothes for better security, meaning to convey them from London to Bath, in order that he might more readily pay the debts due. Of the payment of this money I received no detailed account, beyond a general one, that it was for the use of Lady Catherine and the Misses Long, nor do I believe any account was ever given to the late Mrs. Wellesley.*

The power which I gave was irrevocable for five years, unless I came to England ; the word irrevocable having been inserted, I have been accused of a breach of faith in revoking the power of attorney, but I came to England the moment that accusation was made against me, and I revoked that power and resumed the management of my affairs ; because, without meaning to impeach the integrity of my attornies, I believed that they had not acted with sufficient judgment.

* It appears now that this sum was equally shared between Lady Catherine Long's brothers and sisters.

The idence which took place with

Dr. L before and after Mrs. Welles-

ley's c ' explains my wishes with regard

to the of my children, and the reasons

whicr le, before I knew that they were

Ward dtt mrt, to desire that they might be

sent to me abroad ; but it was known, even at that time, that it never was in contemplation to bring my children into the remotest intercourse with the lady whose name has been so indecently mentioned in the course of these proceedings. And here I must complain, that your Lordship has by no means given such an explanation of the earlier stages of this event as, in my judgment, the facts warrant. I desired my children to be sent to me immediately after my wife's death (as my letters to Mr. Yerbury and Mr. Pittman shew). They were detained in England, not because they were Wards of the Court, but because Mr. Pittman and Mr. Hutchinson chose so to consider them. They had been made Wards by Mrs. Wellesley's assignment to them of part of her pin money (the act of assignment shews her to have been in full possession of her pin money), which, of course, ceased at her death. To this, I understand, Mrs. Wellesley was induced to consent, in consequence of the false assertion, that during her life, I intended to remove the children by stratagem (a pure falsehood) from her. Where was the necessity for stratagem, when I could, at any period, have gone openly and taken them away ? So secretly were they made Wards of the Court, that I was wholly uninformed of the fact, until some time after Mrs. Wellesley's death. I then sue( for a writ of habeas corpus, not to take them abroad, but to remove them, during my absence from England, to Draycot House, where it was my intention to have had them pursue that system of education which I had traced out, and which your Lordship has approved of. My letters to Dr. Lushington, to Mrs. Weilesley, and to Mr. Pittman, written without it being possible for me to imagine that the education of my children would become a subject of notoriety, still less of legal inquiry, all lead to one point, the preventing of all interference with my children on the part of the Misses Long, from the conviction of their sectarian principles, and from the following facts, which I am at length obliged to bring before your Lordship.

Your Lordship has given easy credit to the statement that these ladies are possessed of refined taste, and that a good natural understanding has been improved and enlarged by education. — None of these advantages, either natural or acquired, belong to them. Sectarian tracts have operated upon the mind of the elder sister, at least when I last saw her, to such a degree, that it can scarcely be called rational ; the younger, to a temper the most violent, adds manners the least refined. This must operate as a bar to any claim, or even pretext, she might be so presumptuous as to advance, to the guardianship of children, more especially to the guardianship of daughters. I may have other reasi to proclaim.

W rrested by your

Waiaa ui tnc v^uun, ; me oraer drawn out was, that a person, in the shape of a guardian, should be appointed during my absence abroad. About the time I received, whilst at Calais, the Misses Long's, Dr. Bulkeley's, O'Meara's, and Henry Bicknell's affidavits, I had a letter from the Duke of Wellington, stating that he had accepted of that guardianship at the invitation of the Misses Long, and, as I am entitled to believe, at the instigation of your Lordship. I rejected, with indignation, the project of nominating the Duke of Wellington to be the guardian of my children, without the slightest reference to me ; and I informed his Grace, that if I remained abroad, and it became necessary to appoint a guardian, the natural guardian of those children, if their father were dead, or in a foreign land, would be their grandfather.

Had I consulted my convenience, or pecuniary arrangements, I should have remained abroad until they were completed, but immediately upon the receipt of his Grace's letter, I resolved to make preparations for immediately coming to England, where I arrived in December 1825.

What was my first step ? — I refrained from demanding my children until I had fulfilled every obligation, either written or implied, which my attornies had entered into in my name, and until

I had so arranged my pecuniary affairs, as to ensure to myself a large surplus income. Nor was this all— I made no claim to have my children restored to me until I had purchased and established myself in a house near the Regent's Park (Hall- Place,) peculiarly calculated for the residence of children ; having a large garden, and every convenience necessary fo* their health and comfort. Of this establishment, the lady who has been so much calumniated was not to form a part, nor has she ever been within its walls. I have sworn so once ; why, I would ask, am I to be required to do so a hundred times, in answer to the accusation of Mrs. Scott ?

Having taken these preliminary steps, I felt that I had done all that depended upon me, to ensure the immediate restoration of my children.

I pause for a moment, to introduce a subject which it is hard to believe has not pressed itself with great force upon your Lordship's mind. One of the main charges brought against me, and relied upon with extraordinary pertinacity by your Lordship, is founded upon my renewal of my connection with the lady in question. In the earlier stages of those proceedings, it was sufficiently shewn, that I was earnestly endeavouring to put an end to the connection, and that all my efforts were directed to that end. How, and why were they frustrated ? By your Lordship's self, by the process instituted in the Court over which you preside. Your Lordship, in your own hand-writing, demand ons of statements on affidavits,

not coi th my paternal relation to my

childrei rig solely to transactions in which

that lac self were implicated. In what

possible i these affidavitsbe answered, but

by din ersonal intercourse with her ?

Would ship have admitted it as a good

answer, tnat 1 nad put an end to all communication with the lady, and could not reply to the matters of the affidavit, without a renewal of that connection which might be made the ground of future charge against me ? Your Lordship would have intimated that such a plea was wholly inadmissible. I may, therefore, complain that it was the inquisitorial forms of your Lordship's Court that encouraged the renewal of a connection which has been made the ground upon which your Lordship has deprived me of my children.

When I received, at Calais, the affidavits, which I answered, I should not have been enabled to have given to all the substantial facts those very positive denials I did, without strengthening my recollection by a communication with Mrs. Bligh, who was then living in a separate house, and with a separate establishment from myself. When I arrived in England, that lady continued at Calais ; but when she did arrive in this country, was it my first step to receive, or go to her? Quite the contrary. Mr. Griffith has sworn, and sworn truly, that he took upon himself the reponsibility of the rent of a house, not only without any reference to me, but in direct violation of my express directions.

Still wishing to consider ourselves as separated, but anxious to afford her all the assistance in my power, I desired her to apply to an eminent solicitor, Mr. Powell, who was not, at that time, my solicitor. That gentleman directed her proceedings, without any reference to me, and without any personal interview, on my part, with her. But this state of separation was at length terminated by the necessity imposed by the Chancery proceedings of direct personal intercourse, for the purpose of refreshing my memory upon transactions long past : of recollecting details, and of comparing dates ; which could not have been done by letter, or by the intermediate agency of any third person. And hence, I repeat, your Lordship's Court led to the renewal of that connection, which is now made the foundation of your Lordship's severe, and unmerited decision.

It was shortly after this renewed connection, that the father of this lady, not from any communication with me or his daughter, but with other persons, obtained evidence, which led him no longer to doubt, that which has been proved to be the fact in the course of this inquiry. Having satisfied his mind upon certain points, viz. those which impugned his daughter's veracity and mine, he received his daughter under his protection, and became reconciled to me; and under these circumstances he made the affidavit he the action at nisi prius,

be id myself, was coming

on ly communicated with

me

During the life-time of Mrs. Wellesley, I am at a loss to conceive how any individual, actuated alone by a sense of duty, could take more decided, or indeed more desperate efforts, to separate myself from a connection with a lady whom my wife alone introduced to our establishment.

This lady, after her return to Paris, went to England, and only came to me when I was confined upon a bed of sickness (from which I had never moved, except to travel from Dieppe to Paris) for nine months.

My intercourse with this lady, under all circumstances, and at all times, and now, is of the most unobtrusive kind. She lives in her own house. It would be perfectly unknown that I ever stood in any other relation to her than a friend, but for the proceedings at law and equity. It has been the policy of the solicitor to the Misses Long to drag this lady into notoriety, by assailing her with every species of insult which malice could invent and vulgarity put in practice. It was the assault of Mr. Scott and the summons of Mr. Hutchinson, which forced Mrs. Bligh before the police. The attempt,

c forcibly, to enter Mrs. Bligh's house by this man, evidently had but this object.

The question whether I ought not to have dissolved such an intimacy, during the life-time of my wife (and I have shewn that I did every thing to dissolve it during that period) assumes a very different shape and form after the death of my wife. And here, if I wish your Lordship, as a peer of England, to throw off for a moment the garb of a Judge, and to think as a man, I should request your Lordship to explain how I am to avail myself of the alternative you allow me in your judgment, without being guilty of an act, which would make me lose my self-estimation and render every man of honour my enemy ?

This leads me to say a word upon that fearful armour, or, as I have found it, panoply, of your Lordship's Court, which protects all assertions, I mean assertions couched in affidavit. This armour, well riveted by the artful attorney, renders the most perjured statement invulnerable to the attacks of common law : it also elevates the language of the uneducated man to the level of that of the man of letters. The man of letters, sensible of the import of terms, confused by technicalities, allows his mind to dwell upon manner, so as frequently to become inaccurate as to the matter. The uneducated man gives the matter, in his own inaccurate and indistinct lancua^e, to the attorney, who amplifies, corrects, or curtails it, in the manner which best bears upon what, I suppose, he would call his case.

Your Lordship cannot be unacquainted with the process of the manufacture of the staple commodity of your Court. The poor suitor writes his answer to all the accusations of those who " verily believe." If he be a man of feeling, and perhaps a lover of truth, he is inclined to give his positive denials with some acrimony, and, without very great accuracy as to dates, confines himself to the stout denial of substantive facts. This, in its crude and raw state, is sent to the solicitor, who goes no further with it than to give it legal phraseology, and just to leave out those little particles which he considers, from his own knowledge of your Lordship, will not be suitable to what you call equity phlegm. But there is another practice, which strikes at the root of all security for the suitor, and is destructive of the best principles of just inquiry. No man knows what he is to answer. The counsel, the solicitor, consider what parts of affidavits are such as will be deemed by your Lordship as material ; these they desire the suitor to answer. The Scotts' affidavits, the watchmen's affidavits; in short, all the covey of affidavits which flew into Court this last season, all my consel and solicitors desired Mrs. Bligh and me not to answer ourselves ; otherwise you would have been told, that

C2 which I pledge my soul and honour to be true, first, that Mrs. Bligh never was in any house whatever in Spring Gardens ; and, secondly, that it would be impossible to metamorphose the appearance of Mrs. Bligh into that of Mrs. Scott ; so utterly dissimilar are they in gait, in height, and in size.