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it arrives you shall hear from me, and I send this in the mean time that I may not appear inattentive.

I remain, Sir,

Your most obedient and humble servant,

JOHN BOWLES.

You seem to think by your former letter that I have some controul over the Anti-Jacobin Review, which is not the case.

William Adam, Esq. Lincoln's Inn.

SIR,

Dutch Commissioners' Office, June 22, 1803

I have at length received the letter of which in my last I stated myself to be in expectation, and I am sorry to say that it does not contain the desired information. Not being enabled either to confirm or retract my statement respecting the pond, I think it incumbent upon me to give you the authority on which that statement was founded.

My worthy friend the reverend William Agutter, of the Asylum, being at Woburn in 1797, received the information which I have communicated to the public from the parish clerk of that place.

Upon the representation which you did me the honour to make, I, of course applied to Mr. Agutter, who immediately wrote to the parish clerk, desiring him to confirm his narrative, or to contradict it if not true, No answer was received by Mr. A. Upon the receipt of your letter at Brighton, I again wrote to this gentleman, requesting him to renew his application; this he did after my return to town, and I waited for his communication of the result to reply to you. informs me that his second letter, like the first, is unanswered.

He now

Under these circumstances, desirous as I am to do justice to the memory of the deceased, and to the feelings of the living Duke, I can not consider the fact respecting the pond as refuted. To the expla nation with which you have favoured me respecting the two other facts, I should be happy to be the means of giving publicity; and I refer it to you, Sir, to decide whether this shall be done as expeditiously as possible, by sending an article to the Editor of the AntiJacobin Review, or whether the whole shall wait for more precise information respecting the emptying of the pond.

I remain, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

William Adam, Esq. Lincoln's Inn.

SIR,

JOHN BOWLES.

Lincoln's Inn, 24th June, 1803.

I shall be able, I hope, in a few days, to ascertain beyond a doubt the state of the fact said to have taken place in 1797, and I wish any publication to be suspended till I shall have made that clear; as it will be much more satisfactory, that the publication should take place altogether.

Your obedient humble servant, John Bowles, Esq. Office of Commissioners of Dutch Claims, Broad Street.

WILLIAM ADAM.

SIR,

SIR,

(No date. Indorsed, "Received July, 1803.") Having a very pressing summons to attend the lord-lieutenant of Surrey to-morrow, at Epsom, I shall be prevented from coming to town; and a variety of business elsewhere will hinder my being at this office till Tuesday, perhaps till Wednesday next; but if you will favour me with any communication, I will attend to it immediately. I am, Sir,

William Adam, Esq.
Lincolns Inn.

Your most obedient servant,
JOHN BOWLES.

[Mr. Bowles's objection to make all the reparation required of him to the character of the deceased Duke of Bedford, appeared to be reduced to the ascertainment of one fact; the truth or falsehood of which was capable of direct proof, by a reference to Mr. Agutter's visit to Woburn, and his conversation with the parish clerk there, in the year 1797.

Mr. Adam, in order to obtain the necessary information on that subject, wrote to Woburn, and received copies of the following letters, in the hand-writing of Mr. Cartwright's clerk.]

66 SIR,

Asylum, January 14th, 1805. "I do not know whether you recollect, four or five years ago, a clergyman and a lady coming with Mrs. Haddon, Mr. Filkes's housekeeper, to see the parish church at Woburn, and having some conversation with you about the late Duke. I wish to recollect some particulars,and not to assert any thing but on good ground. It was said then, that he had never been at his parish church: I find that he was there once since, and that was on an Easter Sunday; as the Duke was in the commission for the peace, perhaps he received the sacrament on that day, as a qualification for his office; perhaps you can easily as

certain this.

"I was informed, either by Mrs. Haddon or by you, of a large pond being emptied on a Sunday; and of labourers being paid their wages on a Sunday. If you can either confirm or refute these charges, you will very much oblige me, while you do an act of justice.

To the Parish Clerk of Woburn.

"I am,

&c.

WILLIAM AGUTTER."

"SIR,

Asylum, June 2d, 1803.

"I did myself the pleasure of writing to you some months ago, to state that I was the gentleman to whom you were showing the parish church of Woburn, about five or six years ago, when you mentioned, among other circumstances of the late Duke of Bedford not attending his parish church; that the great pond was emptied on a Sunday: to that letter I have not been favoured with an answer; but may I particularly request an answer to this, that you will, to the best of your memory, recollect the circumstance, and the information given? If Supplem. to Vol. V. Churchm. Mag.

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It was true, you can have no objection to confirm the fact; and if it were not true, my worthy friend who, on my assertion, has published it, will be ready to retract what he has advanced.

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I request again, Sir, as due to yourself and the cause of justice and truth, that you will give every explanation you are able, by a speedy answer to this.

To the Parish Clerk of Woburn.

"I am, &c.

WILLIAM AGUTTER."

<< SIR,

"Your letters being given to the present clerk of the parish of Woburn, they were not shewn to me, who was clerk at the time you speak of, till this morning.

"I shall answer your inquiries according to the best of my recollection. I do not remember the circumstance of any body coming to see the church along with Mr. Filkes's housekeeper; I never recollect seeing the late Duke of Bedford after his return from France at church, but once; but that was neither on Easter Sunday, nor on any Sunday on which the sacrament was administered.

"The story of a number of people being employed in emptying out the great pond at the abbey, and of the Duke's paying his labourers on a Sunday, you could not possibly have had from me, nor from any person who wished to speak the truth; both stories being scandalous falsehoods. The regular pay-day of the labourers was, and still Is, every Saturday fortnight, none of whom, as far as I can learn, were ever employed on the Sabbath-day, except those who must necessarily attend morning and evening to feed the cattle.

Rev. Mr. Agutter, Asylum.

"I am, &c.

EDWARD MANSELL."

[On the 5th of August, Mr. Adam showed the copies of the letters of Mr. Agutter and Mr. Mansell to Mr. Bowles.]

SIR,

Dulwich Common, August 6th, 1803. In our conversation yesterday, I think you admitted that the letter, received by Mr. Agutter, and purporting to be written by the parish clerk of Woburn, was not, in reality, written by that person; of this, indeed, I was before convinced, and I cannot help observing, that this circumstance very much invalidates, in my mind, the effect of the testimony which it is the object of that letter to give. At best, that testimony, as I observed to you, would amount only to a denial in 1803, of a fact which the witness is proved to have asserted in 1797. But as the letter is not actually written by the person whose letter it purports to be, its effect is, at least, much diminished by that circumstance. Could not that person write? Should it that he dictated the letter, and only wrote by an amanuensis, I must observe that t the letter bears internal evidence that it is not of his dictation: moreover, the copy of the correspondence which you produced to me, was evidently in the

same

same hand-writing as the letter received by Mr. Agutter. This I cannot help considering as a remarkable circumstance, I cannot doubt, Sir, your wish to treat me with the utmost candour, but what I have stated has strongly the appearance of duplicity. Notwithstanding my wish to consult the feelings of a noble family, whom I much respect, as far as may be consistent with truth and justice, the same openness which I have hitherto displayed throughout my communications with you, induces me to trouble you with these observations,

I am, Sir,

William Adam, Esq, Lincoln's Inn.

SIR,

Your most obedient servant,

JOHN BOWLES.

Woburn Abbey, August 11th, 1803. As I was leaving town yesterday evening, I received a letter, from you, dated the 6th instant, but having the post-mark of two o'clock, 10th August. You say in it that I admitted in our conversation of the 5th, "that the letter received by Mr. Agutter, and purporting to be written by the parish clerk of Woburn, was not, in reality, written by that person."-To which I answer, that I did not make any such admission and it was impossible I should, as all that I knew, or yet know, of the letter arises from the copy sent me: your reasoning therefore, as far as it rests on this admission by me, is without foundation. Nor do I admit the other parts of your reasoning: I do not think the letter affords internal evidence to prove that it is not Mansell's, nor" that it amounts only to a denial in 1803 of a fact which the witness is proved to have asserted in 1797" the letter only puts the matter in this situation-Mr. Agutter asserts, that Mr. Mansell related the stories to him in 1797, and Mr. Mansell denies that he could do so, as they are "scandalous falsehoods."

My observation to you in our last conversation was, that, things thus circumstanced, the facts could only he decided by the evidence of those who were employed by the Duke of Bedford at the time: I said I would obtain their declarations, and that then the whole might be published together; to this I understood you to assent.

John Bowles, Esq.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

Office of Commissioners of Dutch Claims,

Broad-street.

WILLIAM ADÁM,

(Mr. Adam having examined Mr. Mansell, and various persons in the service of the late Duke of Bedford, to all the points of circumstance and time to which Mr. Bowles's original charges could possibly refer, transmitted copies of their examinations to Mr. Bowles with the following letter.)

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SIR,

Woburn Abbey, August 15, 1803. When I wrote to you from hence on Thursday last, I had not had time to get information respecting the manner in which Mr. Mansell's letter was taken down, or by whom it was written. I have now explained that circumstance in the observation signed with my name annexed to Mansell's narrative.

Upon the perusal of those narratives (the originals of which I have retained in my possession, and which I shall be ready at any time, on my return to town, to submit to your inspection), I have no doubt that you will, without further hesitation, publish the short statement which I sent to you in a letter dated the 15th of April last. I likewise have no doubt that, in conformity to what passed between us at the Indiahouse on the 5th instant, you will publish Mr. Agutter's two letters to the clerk of the parish of Woburn, Mr. Mansell's answer, and all the nariatíves which I now enclose, by which it appears that the short statement which I sent to you is correct in the strictest sense of the word. It will appear---but if not, I am sure you will not hesitate to state it in the publication---that the delay, since the 15th of April, in laying my statement before the public did not rest with me, but arose in the main from your situation and desire to enquire rendering delay inevitable, from my desire to satisfy you by minute examination, and in part from my engagements interfering with some appointments to meet you.

When this publication is made by you, it is all that is required or wished upon the part of the Duke of Bedford, whose anxiety to rescue his brother's memory from the obloquy cast upon it, without foundation, by your publication, is equally just and natural: but in case you decline still to publish what I have here suggested, I must beg to be informed without delay, that I may lay the whole before the public, in order to counteract what has been published in the last and in a former number of the Anti-Jacobin Review, as well as to remove the prejudice raised by what you have published.

me.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,
WILLIAM ADAM.

Any letter or packet addessed to Lincoln's Inn will be sent to

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The Examinations of which Copies were transmitted to Mr. Bowles with the last Letter.

JOSEPH HARTWELL, fisherman at Woburn Park.--He says he has been seventeen years in the Duke of Bedford's service; that he succeeded to be fisherman at Sparks's going away, and worked under him five years before he went away-That during all that time he must have known every thing that was done at the ponds, as he visited

them

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