e, and looks as if the Catholic question had occasioned some
hitch in his _beau-pere_ Peel's negotiations.

Ever most faithfully yours,

C. W. W.

MR. W. H. FREMANTLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

Pall Mall, March 16, 1821.

MY DEAR LORD,

I am hurried to death by the time, and therefore must make my
relation short I endeavoured to meet the Duke yesterday morning;
but failing in this, I enclosed your note to me, saying I owed it
to him not to withhold such information for his _private ear_,
and desiring him to send me back your note. He sent it back in half
an hour, with the enclosed note from himself. This morning he
begged to see me; and being on a Committee, and not released till
four o'clock, I have only at this moment come from him at his
office.

He entered into a very full discussion of the whole business; and,
first and foremost, declared in most positive and unequivocal
terms, that he was perfectly innocent of the charge imputed to him,
and that, fortunately, he had been so guarded in his whole
proceedings throughout this disagreeable quarrel between Lord W----
and his wife, that he should be enabled most fully and clearly to
rebut and destroy any charge ... that might be brought against him.
But feeling this, however, very strongly, he had been to Lord C----
this morning; had consulted with him upon it; and, for the sake of
the family, he thought it most essential, and most highly
desirable, if possible, to prevent Lord W---- from bringing the
charge forward. He considered Lord W----'s object to be founded
exclusively on a wish to blacken her character, and to enable him
to come forward with more effect in his defence (which he must
make) in the case in which he is involved with Mr. W----; that
however much he might blacken her in the first instance, it would
ultimately recoil on himself, and therefore it was a real object to
stop the further proceedings, if possible; that he (the Duke) had
done everything in his power to reconcile the differences
throughout, and that such must appear if Lord W---- persisted.
These were the grounds on which, as a gentleman (without adverting
to a personal consideration), he thinks he ought to advise that a
stop should be put to W----'s further prosecution of this charge
against his wife. The _habeas corpus_ has