The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-14 00:00:00

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

"J. E. EARDLEY WILMOT.
" The Right Hon. Earl Grey, &c., &c.,
Secretary of State for the Colonies."

" Downing-street, May 6,1847.
" Sir-1 am directed by Earl Grey to acknowledge the re-
ceipt of your letter of the 24th ultimo, in which you call his
Lordship's attention to the terms of a dispatch, marked
' Secret, of the 30th of April, 1846, which was addressed
by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to Sir Eardley Wilmot at the
period of his recal from the government of Van Diemen's
Land.
"In reply, I am directed to acquaint you that being, as
Lord Grey had already stated, ignorant of the grounds upon
which that dispatch was written, it is impossible tor his
Lordship to express any opinion regarding it, and that it is
the less necessary to do so, as Mr. Gladstone's own answer
to the letter which has been addressed to him by Sir E. E.
Wilmot, after receiving that dispatch, has been printed, and
all the documents which have since been received from the
colony upon the subject will be presented to both Houses of
Parliament. Lord Grey directs me further to observe, that
there is this additional motive for his abstaining from ex-
pressing any opinion upon this painful subject, that his Lord-
ship could not do so without stating that the reasons as-
signed by Mr. Gladstone in his public dispatch for the recal
of Sir Eardley Wilmot appear to him to be quite sufficient to
justify that step.-1 have the honour to be, Sir, your most
obedient servant, " B. HAWES.
"To J. E. Eardley Wilmot, Esq., 11, King's Bench-walk."

" 11, King's Bench •walk, May 7, 1847.
" beg to acknowledge your letter of yesterday's
date, being a reply to one which I had addressed to Earl
Grey on the 24th ult., asking his Lordship, as Secretary of
State for the Colonies, to remark in his place in Parliament
upon additional documents lately received from Van Diemen's
Land, the same having reference to a secret dispatch.'
written by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to my father, Sir E
Eardley Wilmot, at the time of his recal from the goi-ern-
ment of that colony.
" I regret to find, by the reasons assigned by Earl Grey for
non-interference in this matter, that his Lordship does not
consider the C, lonial- office, as at present constituted, to be a
tribunal qualified to take cognizance of charges made by a
former Secretary of State for that department.
"I hope you will excuse my observing, with reference to
the concluding paragraph of your letter, that I do not ex-
actly see how Lord Grey's approval of the public grounds
on which my father was recalled can in any way influence
his Lordship in declining to express an opinion upon a mat-
ter of a totally different character and complexion. All I
asked his Lordship to do, was to ground upon the basis of
documents lately arrived an acquittal of charges made
against my father's private character. I felt that the public
reasons assigned by Mr. Gladstone for his recal embraced
matters which it would have been impertinent in me in
any way to discuss or interfere with.
"The bar of public opinion being now the only tribunal to
which my father can appeal with hope of justice, I must
beg his Lordship's permission to make this correspondence
public.

"The case of an individual, however humble in itself, be-
comes important when it shows the disadvantages under
which a public servant labours when attacked by other than
positive and spec►fic charges; and that ministers of state do
not act upon the principles of our English law, when they
give credence to allegations unsupported by testimony—to
allegations which they may afterwards find themselves in a
position where they cannot give the injured party an oppor-
tunity of refuting by evidence, and thus entitling himself to
a fair and honourable acquittal.
" I have the honour to be, Sir,
" Your most obedient servant.
"J. E. EARDLEY WILMOT.
" To B. Hawes, Esq., &c.
" Under Secretary of State for the Colonies."

RAILWAY SHARE MARKETS.
LIVERPOOL, MAY 12.

STOCK ExcHANGE.—The market for railway stock is better
to-day. There was a large amount of London and North-
Western and Midland Stock in the market, the sales of which
were rather pressed. The sales are—Birkenhead, Lancashire,
and Cheshire,l% dis.—East Lincolnshire, New (scrip), Is. 3d.
dis.—Edinburgh and Glasgow, 70—Leeds and Thirsk, 5% dis.
—Ditto, Preference, 3s. 9d. p.—Liverpeol,Crosby, and South-
port, 3/4 p.—London and North-Western,l6Bl/2—Ditto, Quar-
ters (L. and B.), 14% p.—Ditto, New Quarters,
p.
9A p.—
Manchester Manchester, and Birmingham, Quarters (B), 5 .
Manchester and Leeds, 321. Shares (late Extension), 1/2 p.—
Ditto, Fifths (late W. It. U.), par—Manchester and South-
ampton, 11/2 dis.—Midland, 1131/2—Ditto, 40/. Shares 21/g
—Ditto, New, 13% p.—Newcastle and Berwick, New, 1,% p.
—North Staffordshire, 1% p.—Shrewsbury and Birming-
ham, 3s. 9d. dis.—Shropshire Union Railway and Canal,
38s. 9d. dis. —South-Eastern and Dover, No. 4, dis.—
South Yorkshire, Doncaster, and Goole, 1 dis.—York and
Newcastle, Preference, 2% p.—Dublin and Drogheda, 161/2
—Ulster, 9 p.
MANCHESTER, MAY 12.

STOCK EXCIIANGE.-The sales are—Ambergate, Notting.
ham, and Boston, 1% dis.—Birkenhead, Lancashire, and
Cheshire, 1 q dis.—Birmingham and Oxford Junction, 6%
p. Blackburn, Clitheroe, &c., Preferentials; 11-16 c. p.._
East Lancashire, New (scrip), dis.—Fleetwood, Preston,
and West Riding, 1% dis.—ldeddersfield and Manchester
Railway and Canal, % dis.—London and North-Western
( Manchester, and Birmingham), 6534—Ditto, Quarters (B),
514 p.—Ditto, ditto (C), 5Vs p.—Manchester, Buxton, Mat-
lock, and Midland, dis.—Manchester and Leeds, 32/. Shares (late Extension), 1/8 p.—Ditto, Fifths (late West Riding
Union), 1-16 p.—Manchester and Southampton, 1% dis.—
North Staffordshire, C. p.— North-Western, 15/4 c. dis.—
Oldham Alliance, 14 dis.—Shropshire Union, 21A dis.—
South-Eastern and Dover, No. 4, 5-16 dis.
LEEDS, MAY 12.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The sales are—Ambergate, Notting-
ham, and Boston, 295. n. dis.—East Lancashire, New, IYB
n. dia.—Ditto, New (scrip), ls. 6d. dis.—East and West
Yorkshire, 11/a dis.—Leeds and Bradford, 431,4 p.—Leeds and
Dewsbury, Halves, 7s. n. dis.—Leeds and Thirsk 614 dis.—
Ditto, Preference, par—Leeds, Wakefield, and Midland, 20s.
dis.—Malton and Driffield Junction, 15s. n. dis.—Manchester
and Leeds 32/. Shares (late Extensions), 2s. 6d. p.—Ditto,
West Riding Union, par—Manchester, Buxton, Matlock, and
Kidland, 7s. 6d. dis.—Midland, Preference, 345. c. p.—North
British, Quarters (late Carlisle Branch), 12s. 6d.
Extension (scrip), Is. p.—North Staffordshire, 14 n. p.—
North-Western, 38e. dis.

HULL MAT 12.
STocfc Exciwiax.—The, sales are—Ambergate, Notting-
ham, and Boston, 235. 6d.—East Lancashire, New (scrip),
3s. 6d. dis.—London, Brighton, and South Coast, Fifteenths,
Is. p.—Manchester and Leeds (West Riding Union), ls. p.
—North British, Quarters, Ms.—Ditto, Extension (scrip),
2s. p.—York and Newcastle, New, 4 p.

SHEFFIELD, MAY 12.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The sales are—Ambergate, Notting-
ham, and Boston, 1% dis.—East Lincolnshire, IN p.—
Manchester and Lincoln Union, 295. dis.—Manchester and
Leeds (West Riding Union), par—Manchester, Sheffield,
and Lincolnshire, Eighths, 2% dis.—Ditto (Sheffield and
Lincoln), 31/.2 di.—Wharfdale Junction, 1% dis.—Leeds,
Wakefield, and Midland, 1 dis.
EDINBURGH, MAY 11.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The sales are--Aberdeen, 251. 17s.
6d.—Airdrie and Bathgate, 31. 14s.—Arbroath and Forfar,
271. 15s.—Ditto, Halves, 151.—Ayr and Galloway, 1/. 19s. 6d.
—Caledonian 241.—Ditto, New, 11. 18a.—Caledonian and
Dumbartonshire, P. 14s.—Clydesdale Junction, 421. 10s.
Deealdel 31. sL—Danblane, Dpune, and Callender, 11, 7s. 6d,

The following correspondence relative to the recal of Sir
J. E. Eardley Wilmot from the Governorship of Van Die-
m( n's Land has just been brought before the public. The
circumstances alluded to in the letters were detailed in our
columns some short time since :

lk To Sir J. E. Eardley Wilmot, Bart., &c.
" We, the undersigned inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land,
having heard that your recal has been influenced by reports
iojurious to your moral character, deem it to be a duty w•
owe to truth and justice to express our unqualified contradii
tion of those reports ; and we feel the more imperatively
called upon to do so, from the fact of many of us having
differed in opinion upon various measures of your govern-
ment. Open the occasion of your retirement into private
life, we have to assure you that you carry with you our best
wishes for your future welfare.
[Signed by the inhabitants of the city of Hobart Town
anoints neighbourhood only. Addresses from other parts of
the colony were being prepared, and will follow. 'the sig-
natures comprise the names of very many clergymen, public
officers, magistrates, and resident gentry of Hobart Town,
about 400 in number].

" 11, King's Bench-walk, April 24, 1847.
"My Lord,—l trust that the circumstance of my father,
the late Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, being
absent from England, and consequently unable to meet the
reports injurious to his character which have been widely
circulated both in this country and in the colony, will form
my apology for addressing these few lines to your Lordship
on the subject.
"Your Lordship will have received at the Colonial office
the dispatches from Van Diemen's Land, of the 9th Jan.,
which arrived yesterday, and which were accompanied by
an address' to my father, signed by the most influential
inhabitants of Hobart Town, and containing a full con-
tradiction of those rumours to which your predecessor at
the Colonial-office had attached considerable weight, with-
out giving my father the opportunity of any answer or expla-
nation.
" I am also informed by a private letter from Van Diemen's
Land, that the same vessel which brought the dispatches
brought also a petition to the Queen in my father's favour,
most numerously and respectably signed.
" Your Lordship, in your letter to my father of the 20th of
March last, which was in reply to one from him of the 30th
of October preceding, appealing to your Lordship, as holding
the sealasof the Colonial-office, for justice, stated, that being
entirely ignorant of the grounds on which Mr. Gladstone
proceeded in writing his secret dispatch,' you must decline
expressing any opinion upon the subject to which it related ;
and your Lordship proceeded to say, that you could not
hold out to my father any expectation of its being in your
power to submit his name to her Majesty for future em-
ployment.
" Doubtless, my Lord, neither the 'secret dispatch' of Mr.
Gladstone, nor the circumstances connected with it, however
injuriously they may have have affected my father's character,
can be considered in nny way as fettering your discretion
in recommending for any colonial appointment those who
may appear to your Lordship most qualified. But your
Lordship must excuse me if I ask to what quarter my father
can appeal for justice if the possessor of the seals of the Co-
lonial-office declines entering into a question which has be-
come publicly notorious and important, because it first
emanated from a Minister whose political principles are at
variance with his own ?

" I confidently appeal to your Lordship, as administrator
of the affairs of our colonial empire, and not as a member of
a Whig Cabinet, to see justice done to an oppressed public
servant. The injury that has been done can never be
effaced. But it is in the power of your Lordship to remove
the unfavourable impression upon the public mind, by stat-
ing in Parliament, that from documents last received from
the colony, your Lordship is satisfied that the rumours pre-
judicial to my father's character are without foundation.
" I have the honour to be, my Lord,
" Your most obedient servant,
" J. E. EARDLEY WILMOT.
" To the Right Hon. Earl Grey, &c., &c., &c.,
" Secretary of State for the Colonies."

" 11, King's Bench-walk, May 3, 1847.
"My Lord,—l beg very respectfully to solicit your Lord-
ship's attention to a letter which I addressed to you as
Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the 24th ult., rela-
tive to the circumstances connected with the recal of my
father, Sir E. Eardley Wilmot, from the Government of Van
Diemen's Land.

"Although I am aware of the vastly greater magnitude
and importance of the transactions which demand your Lord-
ship's superintendence and direction, yet I am sure your Lord-
ship will excuse my anxiety to have these matters cleared
up, as far as they can be, from the very uncertainty of the
charges of immoral conduct against my father; more parti-
cularly as I have learned from gentlemen lately arrived from
the colony that he had been confined to his bed for some time
before they left Hobart Town by sickness, aggravated, if not
produced, by the treatment he has experienced ; and I am
anxious to forward him by the next mail such intelligence as
may give him relief.—l have the honour to be, your most
obedient servant,