The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-17 00:00:00

THE HON. G. C. NORTON.

o
to the
The following letter has been addressed
Editor of the Times by Sir John Bailey :
Sir,—Absence from London and a severe privyt/3.
sorrow have prevented my sooner noticing Ce
letters which have lately appeared in the I?uito,
journals, in which my name has been most
properly introduced by Mr. Norton, Who b
liar
thought fit to publish his copy of a
fore me for my opinion in 1836, andeasae
mine to his solicitor, dated January 9, 1837'
publishes these documents to prove that nIY r_e
' I hag
nion then was at variance with one which
his ee
more recently expressed—namely, that
ossest
duct to his wife " has been marked by the gr
'
cruelty, injustice, and inconsistency.
opiuiess
letterig
If
Norton's remarks on the alteration in my ,
ent,
had been merely intended to impeach my
blusthoasuldhneotintanvdse ctohnedepsucbenlidcedto toin fneortitcbeattlBo.;
Norton may be unworthy of the later 01:1',,
which circumstances have led me to form, anuuyia
himself undeserving of the censure I passed
his conduct towards her, I consider I show" in
acting the part of a coward if I refrainedfredie
coming forward to state the truth, howeveloto
agreeable this enforced publicity may be—_ared
must be—to any man who has merely endeay.;oo
to do his duty fairly and fearlessly, as a gentr,
and a man of honour, between parties utter*
uu-
connected with him. leiter
If Mr. Norton's object in publishing my
be
and opinion had been the developmentof truth,
would Rot have left unstated facts which clefs
account for my change of opinion. As he nly
thought fit to suppress those facts, I will seer
them.
When this opinion of the 3d of October, 1836/
and the letter of the 9th of January, 1837, uwritten by me, I was acting as his counsel ; an'tbst
his ex parte statements, in the firm helie,f,
every assertion he made to me was true and eat
ble of proof, I wrote that letter and I gave
opinion.
Some time in the year 1837, and subsequenal°
my letter to Mr. Currie, my position was ohalA.o-
I ceased to be Mr. Norton's counsel, and all rot
vious attempts at reconciliation or arrangesyl
between him and Mrs. Norton having failed, b.,AI
Mr. Norton's own earnest solicitation, took
myself the arduous and thankless office of
tor, providing that Mrs. Norton would Pwai, a
me to act in that capacity on her behalf. 1,431
not expect that she would ever consent to this'll:4
the position I held as counsel for her husband,
the impression she necessarily must have en;
tamed that I was thus prejudiced against her-
her honour and credit, however, she at once Th
ceded to Mr. Norton's request. I received, Woes
from her and from her husband, written assuran
that they would abide by my decision, whatever it
might be, and on these terms I entered on. art
difficult task. I then, for the first time, learn
Mrs. Norton's side of the question. found, b 9
4
documentary proofs in her possession, that hat
been advising Mr. Norton, not on his real case'" g
on a series of invented fables which he had str`":4
together and consulted me upon. Nearly °T;
statement he had made to me turned out to be
oil
true. I found Mrs. Norton anxious only OR
if,
point, and nearly broken-hearted about it ; Ilanlebeei
the restoration of her children. She treated
pecuniary affairs as a matter of perfect indifferen
and left me to arrange them with Mr. Norton
thought fit. I found her husband, on the contra
anxious only about the pecuniary part of the 70
rangement, and so obviously making the love all';,
mother for her offspring a means of barter and n
gain, that I wrote to him, I could be " no party d
any arrangement which made money the prieelier
Mrs. Norton's fair and honourable access tu,AP
children." I found his history of her expen
and extravagance to be untrue ; and that
while he made that complaint, he had detained, rt,
her wardrobe, jewellery, and books ; in su°
every article of her personal property under thrilled
of selling them.. I advised that these things sb°,
be given up, but Mr. Norton would not conselp,4
do so. I told him frankly I did not think he ouLfilh
ever to have retained them. I found Mrs. Ne.,,,,r7.
had offered to pay her own bills, and that Mr. J:l_,°.'
ton's solicitor had replied that there was no
taking, even if she did pay her bills, that her pro-
perty perty should be returned to her. I found, nolo
Mr. Norton's own handwriting, confessions of t a
grossest personal violence towards his wife, on
that on one occasion he had kicked the draviills
room door from its hinges, and dragged her out r
the room by force ; she being then enceinte of hete
youngest son. I wrote to him to say, that in sr f
of these injuries (supported by the clearest p 173°,
under his own handwriting) I found Mrs. Norton
"reasonable," " tractable' " "very forbearing
in her expressions towards him," anxious to satiSfi
him " for the children's sake ;" writing to me, ir
stead of abusing him, that she desired " heartilif
vainly, and sorrowfully, to be at peace with be;
children's father." I found that the taking away
those children had been the real ground of quarrel
and that not only Mr. Norton threw the blame 0b
the subsequent trial on his advisers, and declare"
that the trial was brought " against his judgme.
but that one of his angriest grounds of complaw
against his wife was, that she had said she " nova
r4,_
would return to him ;" that, as he expresse4L"
she did not " honestly intend to return to Jaw"
when he asked her ;" that his sister and other
friends had told him so ; in answer to which coma
plaint I wrote him word, that Mrs. Norton old
intend to have returned, but admitted she bs,
said to his sister, "it would be for her children g
-
sake." I found even while making this angry
complaint, and while endeavouring to come,:
terms, he retained certain pocket-books and n'•
memoranda of Mrs. Norton's, in case, if the nr,
gotiations went off, he might find in these journrn
something on which to ground some aecu.salt°
against her in the ecclesiastical or other courrh
I read with amazement the series of letters Whi
Mr. Norton had previously addressed to his
and in which he signs himself "Greenacre. d.
showed those letters to the late Lord Wy nibrid
I said, if Mrs. Norton had been my sister I welled
have made them public, and I consider she sh°,l,g
great forbearance and consideration in not inal";
them public when Mr. Norton advertised her
the papers. Mr. Norton admitted to me his
belief of his wife's innocence of the charge he,,,m-a,e
brought against her and Lord Melbourne; and 'oil
letters of his expressly exculpated her from„
blame, and endearingly entreated her to rel„ .n
7cl
and live with him again. I then certainly diet° a
my opinion. I thought Mr. Norton had lent:
his wife the most cruel injury a man could in 10"
and that he was bound to make every 5a,...
and reparation in his power. I saw no earl";
reason why her children should be withheld fr°to
her, and required him to write immediatelyve
Scotland (where the children then were) to '0
them sent to London forthwith. In my prince
and at my dictation he wrote a letter to that (0,611
and sealed it. I posted it myself, and thought
was settled, as the sole stipulation made by 31115.14 r
Norton was the return of her children ; but.
Norton was base enough to write a second lettel,
unknown to me, to forbid their coming—and °and
they did not. As soon as I discovered this fteiace
treachery and breach of faith I threw up my °
ith
of mediator. I remonstrated in severe terms 1.10
Mr. Norton, and my intercourse with
ce
ceased. The question of Mrs. Norton's allowtr.
was not entered upon, as my interference I',he
minated at this point. I deem it,
simplest justice to Mrs. Norton to say that I f°g;g
her irank and straightforward throughout--as
letter
however,_.
strictly up to this sentence in her first
to me :—" Heartily, and as God is my Judei
I desire to make what peace is possible bettyt.o
me and my husband, in spite of the Paecis,
She left her interest entirely in my hasoce
threw no obstacle in my path, and never
_ver
swerved from the promise to abide by wholv,
terms I should lay down. With Mr. N"','.he
though he had appointed me to act, I founal,s
exact reverse. He abused his wife and his wife,
family ; he shuffled about the misstatement
he could not deny : he would be bound neither Di
his verbal promise nor his written pledge ;
after a correspondence, which began in Novembe.l::
and did not end till January, all effort at arrange"
ment was given up. On a calm review of ti,e!,
circumstances, it can scarcely be wondered at that
I utterly changed my opinion, and that the advlc.!
I gave to the writer of the Greenacre
1837, was not the same advice I had given to t‘nu
supposed injured husband of 1836. gave N-ri
Norton, on the fancy case he submitted to counse
good sound honest advice, to the best of my ability !
and gave him the like advice when his real case
came known to me. If he had abided by that ad-
vice, and by his written pledge, the curiosity of the
world would not now be gratified by details of his
private affairs, which he compels others to publish
piecemeal for their own justification. lam sorry,
for his sake, that such publication ever took place ;
and I am glad for Mrs. Norton's sake,
because 1
_
consider there never was a more deeply injured
woman, and that his conduct to her certainly has
injustice,
been marked by "the grossest cruelty,
and inconsistency" that ever any man displayed.
Mr. Norton may attack me with impunity,—l s
not answer him ; but I will not allow him to
per-
suade the public that there is any inconsistency in
an opinion formed on a thorough knowledgeirocfhie
case ; which opinion, now that all the cum_
stances of that case are more generally known, he

will, I think, find be universal.
JOHN BAILEY.
Philorth-house, Fraserburgh, N. 8.,
September 13.