We wait upon you, Mr. De Lancaster, as friends of the lately deceased Sir Owen ap Owen, and in virtue of the regard, in which we hold his memory, are solicitous to preserve the like good opinion of the successor to his estate and title. A report, which, if true, would stamp indelible disgrace upon his character, has reached us, relative to his treatment of a certain favourite horse, which our departed friend bequeathed to your grandson; we know you lived on terms of friendship with Sir Owen, and we trust you will participate in our motives, when we request you (who must of course be acquainted with the particulars, we are anxious to be informed of) to say whether or not there is any foundation for the report we allude to. Gentlemen, said De Lancaster, it is a fact that the horse, which you describe as a favourite of my late friend, was bequeathed by him to my grandson John. And is your grandson now in possession of that horse? In plainer terms, is the horse alive? This question was not put by Sir Arthur Floyd, and Mr. De Lancaster, turning to him, with some discomposure demanded, if it were expected of him to answer all manner of interrogatories in a case, which he was desirous of dismissing from his thoughts. To this Sir Arthur Floyd replied, that with all imaginable respect for his character as a gentleman of the highest honour, they did expect of him to answer all such questions, as might be honourably put to him in the matter of a charge so fatal to the reputation of Sir David Owen, if true; so injurious, if false. We presume also to remind you, sir, that where the name of De Lancaster is attached to a report, it is such an authority as no man can dispute, and of course no man ought to doubt. Upon a point of honour therefore, which by consequence affects yourself not less than it does us, we conjure you to tell us plainly whether the horse be dead or living. The horse is dead; in that state he was found by my grandson and his servant on the heath. You will permit us to ask, said one of the party, if there were not marks of violence upon the carcase; in short, sir, was not the horse hamstrung upon all his legs? I am told he was. Was there any enquiry made as to the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of that butchery? I am constrained to say there was. Lawyer Davis made enquiry. And when lawyer Davis traced out the perpetrators of that most shameful act, have the goodness to inform us whether he did, or did not, find evidence to implicate Sir David Owen as a party in the act itself. Let lawyer Davis answer that himself, replied De Lancaster in a firm tone of voice; I decline it, and you must excuse me.