The Sun.
London, England, 1820-10-19 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

21, Craven-strert, Oct. 18, 1820.

Sin,—lf I were at this moment in fullness of
health, a correction of the monstrous misrepre-
sentations regarding me which took place last
night, in more than one quarter, would be no
slight call upon my exertions. How much more
serious is My task in my present circumstances !
Whether a more cruel hardship can be inflicted,
than to make one man answerable for another's
acts, to which he has been no party, is a point
which may be safely submitted to just minds.
In my present state, however,- I shall confine
myself, at this moment, to a single sample of this
dreadful wroirg.
1 have been charged as the author of certain
Letters to, and against, Lord FITZ WILLIAM.
Of the letters alluded to (those, I presume, of
11AstaDEN and .A.ntsynaEs, iu the Morning
Post,) I really know no more than does my
assailant, or the man who has been italic .geave
thousands of years before my assailant was born.
What I have written respecting Lord FITZ WIL-
LIAM IS, verbatim, what is at the bottom of this
letter—a printed slip,of the original Essay (dated
and published on the27th day of last October,in the
Morning Post,) serving for the compositor's copy
in this reprint of the article. lam aware of • the
present pressure upon newspapers ; but still, I
supplicate its insertion from every Editor in
whose breast the principles of fairness. are not
extinct—keeping in mind Mr. BENNET'S attack
upon me, relatively to Lord FITZWILLIAM.
Such, and only such, is the style in which I have
ever Mentioned and shall ever mention the name
of Lord FITZ WILLI AM-the.dimidium anima, of
CHARLES Fox. So few, alas, of Mr. Fox's real
friends (usually engaging in'llouse of Commons
debates) are spared by the devourer Death, that
my wonder is the less at seeing myself,.his nearly
thirty vears bosom adherent (not the least faith-
ful nor the most interested—tried by all the tests
which can put sincerity to proof) abandoned,
in my utmost need,' to the animadversions of
Mr. HUME, and Mr. BENNETT—without a
tittle of evidence against me. If I live, I
shall re-publish every article that I- have
written since -the death of Mr. Fox, with
my name in the title page, and defy any candid
critic to find in any one of them either lie or
libel—dereliction of principle or oblivion of
friendship. Such will be my' answer to Mr.
BENNETT'S charge of apostacy. What further
course I may pursue towards redress for this out-
rage will depend upon the hereafter.
Exhausted as am, there is another point on
which I must say a word. Mr. BENNETT is de-
scribed as having, by implication, intimated that
I had called the Qv EEN a hag ! I never so called
her 'NIA.; EST Y, nor any woman, since I was born.
In the Essay to which allusion is made, the word
• hag is indeed introduced, but introduced quite
ironically—with a meaning the exact reverse of
what is imputed to it by Mr. BENNETT—and in-
tended only to scout the . philosophy which con-
templated 52 as an age past female frailty.
Almost all that has appeared respecting a Bow-
street warrant, &c. is erroneous. -Until the re-
covery of my health shall enable me to shape
my course, i beg a suspension of judgment, and
a distrust of all reports regarding me.

I am; Sir, &c.
DENIS O'BRYEN.

" DIWISSAL OF LORD FITZWILLLAM.
"The cart Mhat bears him bears not a nobler Gentleman
thairt he Earl of FITZWILLIANI. With Perhaps more of what
may he termed the mural trade-wind in his temper than Lord
licit/N.I°NT, Lord FlrZwrt.taaar, in princely munificence, is
full brother to that Nobleman ; a hnowledtte of whose care-
fully concealed generosities would, by their example, be a be-
nefit to mankind. More than 4.5 years since, the late Mr.
HAKE (himself an assemblage of whatever is most delightful
in a social being) detailed to the miter of this artiLle, suns
by sum, nu less than 150,0001. given by Lord EcrtcaloNT in
mete largesses—ONE H UNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNlis
tweaty-Ree Bears' since ! And if the author- were at liberty
to state some instances of the Noble Lord's bet.eficence,, only
within the last two p ars, which accident has brought to his
own knowledge, the reader's eyes, like the eves of the writer
(though a total stranger to Lord EGRENIONT), would over-
flow, at this casual tribute to a heart whose bounty is clogged
with no other condition than that irf—see
" In acts more or less of this complexion bas passed the
entire life of Lord FITZWILLIANI. ' Fi'rz,' said CHAHLVS
Fox (in a letter to the person who is toy authority), FITZ-
WILLIAM it not only the most generous, but he is touch about
the most amiable of the race of man.' Existence is not pos-
sessed by any mortal, to whom more appropriately than to
that Noble Earl, may be applied the celebrated line of Pope
upon the famous bishop of CuoYNE. Changing BERKELEY
into WENTWORTH preserves the poetry, and exhibits the
Noble Lord as truly as in a mirror. - •
ro WENTWORTH, every virtue under Heaton.'
" As faithfully Own, as.if he were at his account before
the Throne of that same Heaven, does the writer hereof de-
clare, that in the dismissal of this human aggregate of .1 every
virtue under Heaven' front his Yorkshire Lieutenancv, lie dis-
cerns the cert&in Pficty crEriglishfreedoni, That single act
assures the conscrVation of the British Constitutioit--and not
16 have done that act Would, in the writer's most reflex judg-
ment, have been Gut an impeachable minor in the Govern-
ment. To leave the modelling and zoruinand. of a regiment,
which regiment May 1)5 called out to-niori ow in the disturbed
districts—to continue all the powers, civil and mititarv, of a
Lord Lieutenant in the Earl FtTiwu.t.tAm, under all the vir-.
cvmstauce4. of the case (tvhiCh circumstances will lie matter
for future consideration) would, iii the Government, have
been setting an example pregnant with possible ruin. in a
crisis when universal dirty interdietet I any Measure, active or
passive, hazardous of universal scent 4ty.
" It is the acknowledged excellence of Lord Fprzwit,
LIAM'S character which lee,t. illustrates his removal. Ne Ca-
twa quidens ertdendum est. • Not teen to CATO should too
Much be trusted. • The British Comstitutioa is a stake not to•
be rested upon complaisance, eveis to Lord' FrrzwtwArt ;
altough be he a Man whose very and only alloy has its root in
a virtue. What is that alloy?—excess of party feeling. Party
feeling, within definable limits, is tt virtue ; be not
virtuous over-much.'

For ririt;;;s self Might too moi) zeal be had ;
-The worst of niadoien is a saint t on mad.'

" Party saintship having made Lord FiTzwlLLtam a pro-
moter and a pallaktr of the Yorkshire Meetiog and Rcsu/u-
-/ions, the (nivernment became divested of all discretion.—
When the Government saw the, huitettrahly notorious- op-
ponent Of all the phrenzies going wider the name of
Parliamentary Reform—wheo the Gore; nment saw the very
person in whom (in 1794, under an Alarm which, to the
danger of the present moment, was ;L comparative hug-
haar,) the patriot prevailed user the partisan; when they
saw the identical legislator who abandoned the man he loved
and joined the man whose whole anterior` life he had resisted,
merely frem the impulse of public duty; when. the Govern-
ment saw the spotless, the upright, the praised and honour-
ed Earl of FurzwrLLlAM confederating in martreurres which
preferred parlNtibjects to national .valey; when this niiraenlons
change appeared, in palpable Word and deed, to their stir•
prised senses, what else but treachery to their trust would
11'”*e been the avoidable loss of a single day to the Ministers,
in depriving the Noble Lord of his public functjon, the 111)-
1.0)14rd retention .of which would, -in, its inlpgnity, hair
served only as a special invitation to others of a lesi-tinex-
ceplionable description than Lord7FIZ4SILLIAN4 IP much
fArtber than his Lordship?"