Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary PrintsGodden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)
General
Henry Fielding: a Memoir: Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints
Godden, G. M. (Gertrude M.)
Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754 -- Correspondence
"I am extremely concerned to see by a Letter which I have just received
from Mr Jones by Command of your Grace that the Persons concerned for the
Prosecution have not yet attended your Grace with the Affidavits in
Canning's Affair. I do assure you upon my Honour that I sent to them the
Moment I first received your Grace's Commands and having after three
Messages prevailed with them to come to me I desired them to fetch the
Affidavits that I might send them to your Grace being not able to wait
upon you in Person. This they said they could not do, but would go to Mr
Hume Campbell their Council, and prevail with him to attend your Grace
with all their Affidavits many of which, I found were sworn after the Day
mentioned in the order of Council. I told them I apprehended the latter
could not be admitted, but insisted in the strongest terms on their
laying the others immediately before your Grace, and they at last
promised me they would, nor have I ever seen them since. I have now again
ordered my Clerk to go to them to inform them of the last Commands I have
received, but as I have no Compulsory Power over them I can not answer
for their Behaviour, which indeed I have long disliked, and have
therefore long ago declined giving them any Advice, nor would I unless in
Obedience to your Grace have anything to say to a set of the most
obstinate Fools I ever saw; and who seem to me rather to act from a
Spleen against my Lord Mayor, than from any Motive of protecting
Innocence, tho' that was certainly their Motive at first. In Truth, if I
am not deceived, I Suspect they desire that the Gipsey should be
pardoned, and then to convince the World that she was guilty in order to
cast the greater Reflection on him who was principally instrumental in
obtaining such Pardon. I conclude with assuring your Grace that I have
acted in this Affair, as I shall on all Occasions with the most dutiful
Regard to your Commands, and that if my Life had been at Stake, as many
know, I could have done no more.
"I am, with the highest Respect,
"My Lord Duke
"Y Grace's most obedient,
"and most humble servant,
"Henry Ffielding.
"Ealing
"April 27. 1753.
"His Grace the Duke of Newcastle."
The dates of these letters show Fielding to have been at Ealing in the
early spring of this year; and thus afford some confirmation of Lysons'
remark in his _Environs of London_, published forty years later that
"Henry Fielding had a country house at Ealing where he resided the year
before his death." [6] In May a connection with Hammersmith is indicated,
in the burial there of his little daughter Louisa. The entry in the
Hammersmith Registers is as follows: "May 10th. Louisa, d. of Henry
Fielding Esqr."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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