The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-04 00:00:00

LORD RAGLAN AND HIS IMMEDIATE

FAMILY.

Henry, fifth Duke of Beaufort, K.G., Lord-Lieuten-
ant of th 3 counties of Monmouth and Brecon, &c., suc-
ceeded his father while in his minority, being born the
16th October, 1741. In 1766, he married Elizabeth,
daughter of Admiral Boscawen, son of Hugh, Viscount
Falmouth, and by her had issue :-
1, Henry Charles, Marquis of Worcester. 2, Charles
Henry. 3, Edward Henry, 4, Arthur John Henry.
5, William George Henry. 3, John Thomas Henry. 7,
Fitzroy James Henry.
This noble duke, like his august progenitor, the
founder of the order of the Garter, may be emphatically
styled "a father of heroes ;" for he had no less than
four sons, the companions in arms of Arthur Duke of
Wellington, during Lis celebrated campaigns in Spain
and Portugal, and partakers with him of the glorious
victory of Waterloo, viz. :
Lord Edward Somerset, who commanded and led the
household brigade of Horse Guards against the supposed
invincible, but then discomfited, Cuirassiers of Buona-
parte, whom ho totally overthrew ; and for his distin-
guished gallantry, on that and other occasions, in France,
Spain, and Portugal, received the unanimous thanks of
both houses of Parliament.
The Lord John Somerset, who acted, on the same
memorable day of Waterloo, as aide-de-camp to the gal-
lant Prince of Orange, was a most distinguished officer,
and left his name on many a well-fought field. He died
while in command of the Bristol Staff. There is a circum-
stance connected with his Lordship and his military life
which is not sufficiently known. In on‘of his actions in
the last war a Col. Martin, a man of large fortune, was at-
tasked by two gigantic soldiers of the enemy, and would
have been killed, but that Lord John rushed to his rescue,
and ran one of the assailants through the body. Upon
this Col. Martin turned to his lordship, and said—" Lord
John Somerset, I am indebted to you for my life, and
shall not forget the obligation." Years passed, and
Lord John recently died in Bristol, leaving his family
in rather straitened circumstances. However, not long
since, Colonel Martin also died, and showed he had not
forgotten his debt, by leaving to Lord John's eldest son,
Mr. A. Somerset, 10,0001. a-year, and to each of his
daughters 10,0001.—bequests not a little resembling that
of Lord Beresford to Captain Pack.
The Lord Fitzroy Somerset (now Lord Raglan), who
also bore his part, serving as aide-de-camp to the Com-
mander-in-Chief, and losing his right arm at the very
moment of victory. So much was he endeared to that
great Duke, that he chose him for the depository of his
inmost confidence, in the office of his private secretary.
His singular merit also advanced him to the post of
Secretary of Embassy to the Court of France, and to
the delicate and difficult office of conducting a special
mission to the Government of Spain, on the breaking
out of civil commotions in that disordered and unhappy
country. Anno 1823.

Henry Charles, sixth Duke of Beaufort, and brother
of the Commander of our forces in the East, was Mar-
quis of Worcester ; Earl of Crlamorgan, Viscount Gros-
inont ; Lord Herbert, of Chepstow, Raglan, and Gower ;
Baron Beauford, of Caldicot, and Baron Botelourt,
K.G., Lord-Lieutenant and Custos-Rotulorum of the
Counties of Gloucester, Monmouth, and Brecon ; Lord
Warden of the Forest of Dean ; Constable of St. Bria-
vels Castle ; Hereditary Vice-Admiral of the Severn ;
Colonel of the Monmouth and Brecon Militia ; D. C. L.,
&c. Lord of the several castles and manors of Raglan
Whitecastle, Grosinont, Skenfrith, Monmouth, Chep-
stow, Striguil, Usk, and Newport ; also of the de-
mesnes of the Abbey of Tintern and the Priory of
St. Kingsmark (including the Manors of Portraseg,
Trelleck Grange, and Magor, and Redwick),
and the Manors of Trelleck, Dingestow, Pen-
rose, Landenny, Kilgoggan, Pillenay, Landilo-
Cresseney, and Maindiff, in the county of Mon-
mouth ; and the castles of Swansea and Oystermouth,
and the Seigniories of Gower and Kilvey, in the county
of Glamorgan ; and the cantles and manors of Crick-
howell and Tretower, in the county of Brecon ; and
manors of Tidenham, Wollaston, Badminton, Stoke,
Gifford, &c.

This most worthy and exemplary nobleman preferred,
like his father, the quiet of a private life to the distrae-
' tions mid perplexities of a public career. In the domes-
tic relations of a father, husband, friend, and patron, he
had scarcely an equal, certainly not a superior, in his
exalted station. Such was the strict punctuality of his
habits of business, whether as Lord-Lieutenant or other-
wise, that he was never known to fail in an appointment
once made, unless prevented by unforeseen and insur-
mountable obstacles ; and such his scrupulous regard to
his word and promise, that there were few on whom so
unhesitating a reliance could be safely placed.
He was succeeded in his titles and honours by the
noble duke, recently deceased, who was a most dis-
tinguished officer, and earned for himself the highest
distinction in the field of Waterloo. His was a dis-
position singularly kind and benevolent, and his friends
were stedfast and many. As lord of princely Bad-
minton, his hospitality was noble and generous, and
will make Badminton be long remembered by many
wbo fill the highest places in the different continental
courts.

His son, the present duke, on the appointment of
his great uncle as Commander-in-Chief in the East, was
anxious to emulate the warlike glories of his family,
but he has been dissuaded from the idea by Lord
Raglan, he being the noble head of a family that in the
present century, at least, have dune enough for
fame.

Lord Raglan, eldest son of the late Major Somerset,
was a worthy scion of his illustrious house. He inherited
in full perfection his father's fearless courage and splen-
did conduct in the field, and excited universal admiration
during the Indian campaigns, in one of which he nobly
fell. He greatly distinguished himself at the battle of
Maharajpore, in 1843, by fighting band to hand with a
dexterous Mahratta warrior, though he had left a sick
bed for the fight. In the Sutledje campaign of 1845, he
was the foremost in the field, and amidst confusion and
darkness, at Moodkee, when the bravest troops were
for a time bewildered, he rode along the ranks, with his
cap raised on the point of his sword, cheered on the men,
and told them that ho would lead them on to glory. Ho
fell on the night of the 21st December, riddled with shot,
and could hardly be recognised when morning revealed
the carnage produced by the Sikh .cannonade, which
continued all night. Since the days of Clive there never
has appeared a more brilliant soldier on the plains of
India.

MR. GLADSTONE ON THE INCOME TAX.

It will be recollected that on the extension of the in-
come tax to all persons receiving 1001. per annum, Mr.
Phelps, a gentleman resident in Birmingham, addressed
a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, respecting
the compensation proposed to he given by the remission
of the tea, soap, and other duties, for the imposition of
a direct income tax. Mr. Gladstone replied in a letter,
which was published at the time. Mr. Phelps has
since addressed the right lion. gentleman again, re-
questing explanation as to the manner in which lie could
reconcile his statements of last year with the present
higher and increasing prices of all commodities. To this
second application Mr. Gladstone has courteously re-
plied in the following letter
"Downing-street, March 23, 1854.

" Sir,—My attention has been called this morning to
a short letter written by you, and headed with my name,
which has not reached me, but which I bee printed in a
London daily journal.

" You inquire of me what has become of the equiva-
lents which I assured you last year that you were to
obtain by way of compensation for the infliction of the
income tax?

"!laving replied to you personally at a period of
peace, cheapness, and prosperity, when your letter of
inquiry and your individual case afforded the a conve-
nient opportunity of stating propositions susceptible of
general application, I think it but just that I should
not shrink from doing the same at a moment of difficulty,
of extremely high prices, and of immediately impending
war.

" I deeply regret the pressure which you and others
hare felt from a nearly doubled price of bread, together
with a greatly augmented cost of numerous other articles,
and which you will feel from the increased taxation at-
tendant of necessity upon warlike operations • but in the
letter which I addressed to you last year, I find nothing
to regret and nothing to retract.
" In that letter I proceeded upon the principle that
the receivers of incomes of from 1001. to 150/. a-year had
derived from the imposition of the income-tax a benefit
—firstly, much greater than any compensation
oernje the oyed
by those who had, up to that time, exclusively borne
burden of the tax ; and, secondly, much greater than
the amount of tax it was then proposed to lay upon
them. •
" At that moment there was an income tax in exist-
ence, and the question which the Government had to
consider was this—whether those who had before borne
the whole burden and reaped the smaller share of the
benefit might, on its re-enactment, fairly ask that per-
sons in your position, who had so long profited by the
measure, should at length be called upon to pay the im-
post, at least in a mitigated form.
The answer of Parliament and the country was, I
may say, unanimous in the affirmative, and your own
sense of justiceledyou honourably to concur in the
general judgment.
But I also went on to say that the fathers of families
in your class of life would realise savings from the
changes we had proposed to Parliament greater than the
cost at which (by payment of the income tax) they were
to obtain them. I showed that the deductions from
price which would be realised within 3 years from that
time upon certain articles would more than reimburse the
amount withdrawn by the tax. My proposition was
founded, not upon arbitrary estimates, but upon actual
returns of cases fairiy taken, and exhibiting the propor-
tions in which these articles entered into the general
expenditure of various classes.
" But you appear to suppose that in promising to
You a deduction from price, to follow up the diminu-
tion or removal of a duty, I guaranteed to you a reduc-
tion of price absolutely and independently of all causes
whatsoever. Now, this was alike beyond my language
and my power.
" Parliament could not, for example, by lowering the
tea duty in England put an end to the state of war and
confusion in China, which has raised the price by an
amount about equivalent to the first instalment of remis-
sion. Have you and others, then, not been gainer's by the
reduction? On the contrary, had the reduction nob tak-en
plane the—coni,Mner-s- in'tngland must have borne the
pressure of both the full duty and of the increased cost
of the article in bond. I will go a point further. I do
not hesitate to say that by this first reduction of 4,(1.
the ebaumer been relito-pd even to a greater inlStint,
titCgUe tct cs4akila9(_

with other countries, a larger proportion of the whole
year's export of tea from China than would otherwise
have been sent here ; and thus far, besides the saving in
duty, acted upon the price in bond.
" The case is the same as to soap and as to other
articles. Parliament cannot guarantee to the country
that the prices in scarcity shall be the same as those
in abundance, or the prices in war the same as the
prices in peace. What may be justly expected of it
is, that it should not aggravate the evils of scarcity by
bad legislation, and that it should not allow itself to bo
provoked or drawn into war except by the clear call
of duty. Has it discharged its proper office in these
respects ? I think it has, and I find a proof of the
first in the still very great, though necessarily abated,
measure of prosperity which attends our trade and in.
dustry,—of the second, in the general content, and even
cheerfulness, with which the nation addresses itself to
the efforts and sacrifices entailed upon it by the in.
creasing demands of the public service.
With these explanations,
" I remain your very obedient servant,
"W. E. GLADSTONE.
" Mr. J. Lloyd Phelps."