de Hollande est au-dessus de nos forces, et qui avez déjà montré compassion à nos maux, ne manquerez pas--nous nous en flattons--d’employer vos efforts auprès de Messieurs les Officiers de l’Artillerie pour qu’ils désistent de leurs prétentions. Nous prenons la liberté de vous adresser un double de notre lettre, vous priant de l’adresser à son Excellence _My Lord_ Chatham, et d’appuyer auprès de son Excellence nos réclamations raisonnables.” [Sidenote: Dated Middleburg, 8 Sept. 1809.] This appeal was answered by General Macleod to the effect that he could not, under any consideration, relinquish the rights of his Corps: that he persisted in his claim, which had received the perfect approbation of Lord Chatham; but that, in consideration of the representations made by the magistrates, he again renounced the idea of deriving emolument to himself at the expense of the distresses of the inhabitants, but would persist in the right of his Corps, unless the magistrates should consent to pay the still further reduced sum of one hundred guineas in establishment of the right;--“to be disposed of in charity to the soldiers’ wives and widows of the Royal Artillery, as may be thought proper hereafter.” As General Macleod was on the eve of leaving Walcheren for England, he transferred the correspondence to Colonel Terrot, with the intimation that he himself would have no objection to an appeal to the English Legislature, should [Sidenote: Dated Middleburg, 9 Sept. 1809.] the magistrates of Flushing insist on it; but “in that case,” he wrote, “it is to be understood that the appeal is for the _whole_ of the bells, or for the full amount of their value. The appeal leaves no room for generosity on either side.”