The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-10 00:00:00

• 17,--.A53,
OCTOBER 10 1840.
fL-v-

, MEM a.rz..lsiz.,.,tam•

EARL FITZITA RDINGE AND THE
REPRESENTATIV ES OF WEST GLOUCES-
TERSHIRE.

Mr. Grantley Berkeiley, M.P. for West Gloucester-
shire; has issued the fodlowing address :

TO TILE INDEPEND.EST ELECTORS OF THE WESTERN
DIVISION OF TIM' CJUNTY OF GLOUCESTER.

" Gloucester, Oct. 8, 1846.
" Friends and Felllow-countrymen,—Circumstances
deeply affecting my position, and yours, have arisen,
which render it a matter of imperious necessity that I
should thus address you there never was any conceal-
ment between us, there shall be none now.
" I have a letter, bearing date the 31st of August,
1846, in which Lord Fitzhardinge f.)r the first time in-
forms me, that be shall discontinue the support he had
for so many years given to my representation of the
county. You will, I am sure, pardon me for not
touching on all the wild passages of that angry letter,
and permit me to bring under your notice the only
strictly public accusation it contains. In the sin-
cerest sorrow I assure you, that were I in the present
instance to deein it worth my while to allude to other ob-
jectionable portions of that remarkable communication,
I could not do myself justice in my refutation of them,
without touching with a tenfold deeper tint, certain and
mischievously ruling or predominant shadows, that un-
happily are already too.well known as imperiously ex-
isting in the quarter whence the aspersion comes.
"Lord Fitzhardinge, then, accuses me of 'having
abused the Government patronage.' I could very easily
call on all the menabers of the Governments, past and
present, to clear me of this futile but also tangible
charge ; but I will content myself with laying the plain
and stubborn facts before you. His Lordship alludes to
a cadetship.'
" The first and only cadetship I ever asked for or ob-
tained, I bestowed some years since on the son of Mr.
J. Sheppard ; he is a branch of the family of that name
long known in the county of Gloucester, in the vicinity
of Dursley ; a member of the great body of Dissenters,
and the author of a very clever pamphlet, published
some years ago, headed Observations on the Ad-
dress of Sir Robert Peel to the Electors of Tam-
worth, showing the insufficiency of his Declaration of
Principles.' I need only further state, that I have
known and respected Mr. Sheppard for upwards of
20 years, and that he is at this moment a voter on the
liberal registration of my division. The promise of a
cadetship,' of which I am directly accused of having more
recently and unfairly obtained,' is simply as follows:
A very gentlemanlike, high spirited, and promising boy,
a visitor and companion of my son's, and also my friend,
was left an orphan in the world, without any immediate
source of obtaining a profession. A lady, a relative of
his, requested me to obtain for him a cadetship. On
receiving that application, I wrote to my friend at the
head of the India Board (Sir John Hobhouse), and told
him I could not ask him for a favour he had some years
beforo granted, but the letter, containing the application
to me, I placed in his hands, with the hope that it would
plead its own cause, backed by my willing testimony to
the worth and gallant bearing of the boy. My friend,
upon the contents of that speaking letter, promised me
that if he had a cadetship to bestow next November
twelvemonth, the boy I patronised should have it.'
"I don't disguise my sincere pleasure in having been
instrumental in obtaining this promise.
" Charges so ill-founded and futile as these scarce de-
, serve a public notice, but I will leave the public to judge
between me and my accusers, when words are perforce
the only weapons to my hand.

"Since I received the first-mentioned letter from Lord
Fitzhardinge, announcing to me the withdrawal of his
,upport, his Lordship, without giving me any notice of
his intention, convened a meeting at Gloucester, and the
written resolution which ho induced that convention to
arrive at run as follows:

" ' A meeting of some of the influential supporters of

the Liberal interest of the Western Division of
having taken place at Gloucester on the 15th of
September, 1846, and a statement having been made by
Earl Fitzhardinge as to his future intentions with regard
to the representation of the division, it was unanimously
decided to support in every possible way the views and
intentions of Lord Fitzhardinge as detailed to-day, and,
as a necessary consequence, to deprecate every attempt
which may be made to peril the Liberal interest in this
division. (Signed)

" Thomas Kingscote, Joseph Watts, Edward Jones,
John Probyn, 0. Stoughton, J. Pyrke, R. J.
Purnell, R. F. Jenner, W. Joyner, Ellis.'
" When this resolution was sent to me, involving as I
found it did, a blind adherence to an unexplained plan,
for there are names among them of decided protectionists,
who will not support free-trade principles, or vote for
any man that does, at least so they have assured me; and

-
that it was in fact a resolution to-sacrifice me to what-
soever nominee his Lordship might propose, I demanded
that those same gentlemen should meet me at Glou•
tester on the 6th of October, and to that convention I

invited Lord Fitzhardinge. With one or two exceptions,
on the plea of illness, and with the omission of Lord
Fitzhardinge, they afforded me the presence I required.
Indeed, setting aside all other ties, an Englishman has a
right to call for an interview face to face with his ac-
cusers, and having turned to one side of the question,
they could not refuse to hear the other.
" Their meeting afforded me all the personal satisfac-
tion the extraordinary circumstances admitted, but
publicly they gave me none. I don't know now why
Lord Fitzhardinge deserts me, or why they, the gentle-
men who attended him, have seemed to take a step
sanctioning his desertion, unless it is that he has refused
to pay for the registration of the division if they don't
obey him, and they are not prepared to pay far it; and
they further say, if he does not do so, the division will
fall into the hands of the protectionists.' A sorry com-
pliment to men, to principle, and measure, to deem that
the voice of this great county depends on one man's gold!
But still this can't be it—for the meeting contained pro-
tectionists, who, if sincere in their views, would desire
to see the county in other hands. Since these gentle-
men met me, I have heard one of them declare he
signed the paper conditionally. Conditionally or not,
I assign the whole proceeding in the first and primary
aggression, as harsh towards me, uncalled for, uncon-
stitutionally oppressive, and not as yet an agitation
publicly understood !
" It then becomes my painful but imperative duty to
resist these aggressive steps towards me, for two reasons.
The first, because no one has a right to wrest to any
privately instilled animosity, the free choice of a free
constituency, because when public party purposes suited
private as well as public design, he assisted one general
registration. In the second place, to withdraw the con-
fidence and support from a representative who was
thought of judgment sufficient to propose a member to
represent the whole county on the question of reform,
and then to represent a division of the county himself
after the reform was carried up to the present time, and
who has from that time to this faithfully guarded his
trust, to the utter defiance of any charge against him, is
in fact a declaration that he has been found unworthy
any longer to hold his place in Parliament.
" I call therefore on the noblemen and gentlemen and
independent electors of the Western Division to convene
a public meeting in the early part of November next,
when and where they please, at which I will attend to
tender an account of my stewardship, and publicly de-
mand why Lord Fitzhardinge so unconditionally deserts
me. On the field of politics, I stand precisely on the
spot where he placed me. lam so far and no further,
by his immediate desire, and with his personal concur-
rence, and, it is fair to presume, that in his
unexplained desertion of me, he either contemplated a
retrograde movement, or he means to jump beyond me,
leave me at a spot to which my obedience to his wishes
led me, and to join the free•traders to the evident extent
of their wishes. At all events, by every law of courtesy
and justice, he ought to give me the option of taking
either step by his will I
" A letter from one of my constituents in the Forest,
who writes for himself and others, states, ' that they
had heard that his Lordship had withdrevn his support
from me; but they did not know exactly why, but the
fact of his having done so seemed to them to destroy
every remaining hope of my re election. And then they
began to look round and inquire who would be a suitable
man to bring forward. Many of my able friends, if they
must have some one in my place (which seemed to be
inevitable), would prefer a gentleman altogether removed
from the hostile influence of which my letter complained,
and their inquiries were directed not to Berkeley Castle,
but to another quarter.'
" These inquiries' refer to a period long previous to
the letter' which my correspondent alludes to as having
received from me; and I address the very natural in-
quiry to the paper signed at the meeting called by Lord
Fitzhardinge, and ask, who then is it that has already
placed in peril the Liberal interest,' and who has and
is about to sever the political ties so honourable to the
old Castle?
" Let every gentleman and man throughout the county
withhold the promise of his support till these doubts are
dispelled ; I am ready to sacrifice myself as I have long
done, for her real interests, but not to an unworthy con-
spiracy, if one exists. I tun in no way inclined to com-
mit a political suicide, or to allow my political life to die
, by the hand of undiscovered assassination. I call on you
then, upon those friends who have so long reposed their
trust in me—to support me until we differ—or until I
shall have been proved unworthy of the public confi-
dence.—And with sentiments of the highest respect, I
remain your gratified and most faithful servant,
" GRANTLEY F. BERKELEY.'

A NEW SPECIES OF.MONOMANIA The whims and
caprices of some of the biped race
amount to a species of monomer: ra truly be said to
rAt Stratford, in the
suburbs of the metropolis, within the boundary of this
county, resides an olti and eacentric personage, possessed
of considerable house property, who has a monomania
for empty houses, and to such an extent does he indulge
in this species of madness, that houses which would
realise an aggregate annual rental of I:tween 5001. and
6001. per annum he allows to sand empty, nor will the
solicitations and ilill';;;xttlllitiCS of his best friends induce
him to let ',Lem. He is in the daily habit of calling on
some of his neighbours, as he states, for a chat to pass
the time away, but when interrogated about permitting
his houses to stand empty, he invariably replies he has
no time to attend to that matter. The loss already
sustained in parochial rates, &c., in the parish of West
Ham, from this empty house monomania, is estimated at
from elenia to twelve hundred pounds,—Essex Standard.