་ sabbecline plica should it mes under the ne you, and the rule of : and, in-goodered it as - roofs of aftowards This majesty, mmmmmailowed me to become I have taken two days to consider the contents of your letter of the 6th inst. in order to be as accurate as possible in my answer, which must account to you for its being longer, perhaps, than I intended, or I could have wished. I confide entirely in the personal kindness and affection expressed in your letter, and am, for that reason, the more unwilling to trouble you again on a painful subject, in which you are not free to act, as your inclination, I am sure, would lead you. But, as it is not at all improbable, that every part of this transaction may be publicly can. in this staged to you, fairly vassed hereafter, it is of the utmost what has passed, I importance to my honour, without wil see that there can which I can have no happiness, that ones for the apprehen- my conduct in it shall be fairly rein the latter part presented, and correctly understood. When I made a tender of my ser kna kerter, that any slur can at go our character as an offi- vices to his majesty's ministers, it was with a just and natural expectaem —narticularly as I recollect your ng to me yourself, on the tion, that my offer would have been ds on wich you received the noti- accepted, in the way in which alone 1.5. of your appointment to the it could have been most beneficial to chacht dragoons, the explanation my country, or creditable to myad condition attached to it by his self: or, if that failed, that at least ; and therefore, surely, you (in justice to me) the reasons for a must be satisfied, that your not be refusal would have been distinctly ng advanced in military rank, pro- stated; so that the nation might ceeds entirely from his majesty's be satisfied, that nothing had been sentiments respecting the high rank omitted on my part, and enabled to you hold in the state, and not from judge of the validity of the reasons 4 assigned assigned for such refusal. In the first instance, I was referred to his majesty's will and pleasure; and now I am informed, by your letter, that before he had appointed me to the command of the 10th light dragoons, he had caused it to be fully explained to me, what his sentiments were with respect to a prince of Wales entering into the army." It is impossible, my dear brother, that I should know all that passed between the king and you; but, I perfectly recollect the statement you made of the conversation you had had with his majesty, and which strictly corresponds with that in your letter now before me. But I must, at the same time, recal to your memory, my positive denial, at that time, of any condition or stipulation having been made, upon my first coming into the army; and I am in possession of full and complete documents, which prove that no terms whatever were then proposed, at least to me, whatever might have been the intention: and the communications which I have found it necessary subsequently to make, have ever disclaimed the existence of such a compromise at any period, as nothing could be more averse to my nature, or more remote from my mind. As to the conversation you quote in 1796 (when the king was pleased to appoint me to succeed sir William Pitt), I have not the most slight recollection of its having taken place between us. My dear brother, if you date it right, you must be mistaken in your exact terms, or, at least, in the conclusion you draw from it; for, in the intimacy and familiarity of private conversation, it is not at all unlikely that I should have remembered the communication you made me the year before; but, that I should have ac quiesced in, or referred to a com promise, which I never made, is utterly impossible. Neither in his majesty's letter to me, nor in his correspondence with Mr. Addington (of which you may not be fully informed), is there one word, or the most distant allusion to the condition stated in your letter; and even if I had accepted the command of a regiment on such terms, my acquiescence could only have relation to the ordinary situa tion of the country, and not to a case so completely out of all contemplation at that time, as the probable or projected invasion of this kingdom by a foreign force, sufficient to bring its safety into question. When the king is pleased to tell me, "that should the enemy land, he shall think it his duty to set an example in defence of the country;" that is, to expose the only life which, for the public welfare, ought not to be hazarded, I respect and admire the principles which dictate that resolution; and as my heart glows with the same sentiments, I wish to partake in the same danger, that is, with dignity and effect. Wherever his majesty appears as king, he acts and commands; you are commander in chief: others of my family are high in military station; and even by the last brevet a considerable number of junior officers are put over me. all these arrangements, the prince of Wales alone, whose interest in the event yields to none but that of the king, is disregarded; omitted; his services rejected. So that, in fact, he has no post or station whatsoever, in a contest, on which the fate of In } . 2 ⚫ me, when I delivered to you ng's answer, as I should cer. have felt it incumbent upon recal to your memory, what had told me yourself in the 1793. No conversation whatever passed between us, as you justly remark, in the year 1796, when sir William Pitt was promoted to the king's dragoon guards, which was done in consequence of what was ar. arranged in 1793, upon your first wer, appointment to the 10th light dra goons; and I conceive, that your mentioning in your letter my having stated a conversation to have passed between us in 1798, must have 11. arisen from some misapprehension, as I do not find that year ever adverted to in my letter. P. rom my arletter, awering that vars to me be clearly brother, you ve to repeat to the fullest conrecollect your s, see! zaòd me, at Carltonne year 1793, on the act you was informed of § having acquiesced in of being appointed to an of the 10th regiment ANA "BEOORs, of which sir WilBan was then colonel, the mesA condition which was deyou from his majesty, and majesty repeated to me, year 1795, as mentioned in meter of Thursday last: and I have the fullest reason to know, what there are others to whom, at hat time, you mentioned the same I have thought it due to us both, my dear brother, thus fully to reply to those parts of your letter, in which you appear to have mistaken mine; but, as I am totally unac quainted with the correspondence which has taken place upon this subject, I must decline entering any further into it. I remain ever, my dear brother, Frederick. Brighton, Oct. 12, 1803. My dear brother, By my replying to your letter of the 6th instant, which contained no sort of answer to mine of the se cond, we have fallen into a very frivolous altercation, upon a topic which is quite foreign to the present purpose: indeed, the whole importance of it lies in a seeming contradiction in the statement of a stance; nor have I the least fact, which is unpleasant, even upon recollection of your having denied the idlest occasion. I meant I meant to assert that no previous condition to forego all pretensions to ulterior rank, under any circumstances, had been imposed upon me, or even submitted to me, in any shape whatsoever, on my first coming into the service; and with as much confidence as can be used in maintaining a negative, I repeat that assertion. When I first became acquainted with his majesty's purpose to withhold from me further advancement, it is impossible to recollect; but that it was so early as the year 1793, I do not remember; and if your expressions were less positive, I should add, or believe; but I certainly knew it, as you well know, in 1795, and possibly before. We were then engaged in war, therefore I could not think of resigning my regiment, if, under other circumstances, I had been disposed to do it; but, in truth, my rank in the nation made military rank, in ordinary times, a matter of little consequence, except to my own private feelings. This sentiment I conveyed to you in my letter of the second, saying, expressly, that mere idle, inactive rank, was in no sort my object. But upon the prospect of an emergency, where the king was to take the field, and the spirit of every Briton was roused to exertion, the place which I occupy in the nation, made it indispensible to demand a post correspondent to that place, and to the public expectation. This sentiment, I have the happiness to be assured, in a letter on this occasion, made a strong impression on the mind, and commanded the respect and admiration of one very high in government. The only purpose of this letter, my dear brother, is to explain, since that is necessary, that my former ones meant not to give you the trouble of interceding as my advocate for mere rank in the army. Urging further my other more important claims upon government, would be vainly addressed to any person, who can really think that a formal refusal of mere rank, under circumstances so widely dif ferent, or the most express waving of such pretensions, if that had been the case, furnishes the slightest colour for the answer which I have received to the tender I have now made of my services. Your department, my dear brother, was meant, if I must repeat it, simply as a channel to convey that tender to government, and to obtain either their attention to it, or an open avowal of their refusal, &c. (Signed) G.P. To His Royal Highness the Duke of York. Horse Guards, Oct. 13. Dear brother, I have received your letter this morning, and am sorry to find, that you think that I have misconceived the meaning of your first letter, the whole tenor of which, and the military promotion which gave rise to it, led me naturally to suppose your desire was, that I should apply to his majesty, in my official capacity, to give you military rank, to which might be attached the idea of subsequent command. That I found myself under the necessity of declining, in obedience to his majesty's pointed orders, as I explained to you in my letter of the 6th instant; but, from your letter of to-day, I am to understand that your object is not military rank, but, that a post should be allotted to you, upon the present emergency, suitable to your situation in the state. This I conceive to be purely a poFitical consideration, and, as such, totally out of my department; and, as I have most carefully avoided, at all times, and under all circumstances, ever interfering in any political points, I must hope that you will not call upon me to deviate from the principles by which I have been invariably governed. Believe me, my dear brother, in the state." Upon what ground you can hazard such an assertion, or upon what principles you can draw such an inference, I am utterly at a loss to determine. For I defy the most skilful logician, in torturing the English language, to apply with fairness such a construction to any word or phrase of mine, contained in any one of the letters I have ever written on this, to me, most interesting subject. I call upon you to re-peruse the correspondence. In my letter of the 2d instant, I told you unequivocally that I hoped you knew me too well to imagine, that idle, inactive rank was in my view; and that sentiment, I beg you carefully to observe, I have, in no instance whatCarlton House, Oct. 14. ever, for one single moment, relinMy dear brother, quished or departed from. It cannot but be painful to me to be reduced to the necessity of further explanation on a subject, which it was my earnest wish to have closed, and which was of so clear and distinct a nature, as, in my humble judgment, to have precluded the possibility of either doubt or misunderstanding. Surely there must be some strange fatality to obscure my language in statement, or leave me somewhat deficient in the powers of explanation, when it can lead your mind, my dear brother, to such a palpable misconstruction (for far be it from me to fancy it wilful) of my meaning, as to suppose for a moment I had unconnected my object with efficient military rank, and transferred it entirely to the view of a political station, when you venture to tell me my object is not military rank, but that a post should be allotted to me, upon the present emergency, suitable to my situation Giving, as I did, all the considerations of my heart to the delicacy and difficulties of your situation, nothing could have been more repugnant to my thoughts, or to my disposition, than to have imposed upon you, my dear brother, either in your capacity as commander in chief, or in the near relationship which subsists between us, much less the expectation of causing you to risque any displeasure from his majesty, by disobeying, in any degree, his commands, although they were even to militate against myself. But, with the impulse of my feelings towards you, and quickly conceiving what friendship and affection may be capable of, I did not, I own, think it entirely impossible that you might, considering the magnitude and importance which the object carries with it, have officially advanced my wishes, as a matter of propriety, to military rank and subsequent command, through his ma jesty's |