Autograph Letter Signed ('Fitzhardinge') from William Fitzhardinge Berkeley, 1st Earl FitzHardinge, complaining to the editor of the Bristol Times [Joseph Leech] of misrepresentation in a letter by his brother the MP Grantley Berkeley.

Author: 
William Fitzhardinge Berkeley (1786-1857), 1st Earl FitzHardinge [styled the Lord Seagrave, 1831-1841] [Joseph Leech; Hon. George Charles Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley (1800-1881)]
Publication details: 
Cheltenham; 11 February 1850.
£120.00
SKU: 13580

2pp., 4to. In good condition, on aged paper, with traces of mount at head. The Earl and his brother loathed one another. FitzHardinge was a notorious philanderer, and Berkeley - whose violent behaviour included assaulting the bookseller Fraser and duelling with Maginn - held his position as a Member of Parliament to spite him. The letter begins: 'Sir. | You have published a letter from Mr. Grantley Berkeley in your Paper, a short time since, in which he asserts his knowledge of the quarter whence arises a vindictive persecution, and whence come funds for the support of an action for seduction, and in a comment, you distinctly apply this insinuation to me, and ascribe to me an interference hardly fraternal. The correspondence which I now enclose [not present] (the only communication I have ever held) will enable you to judge of the truth of the insinuation in Mr. Berkeley's letters, and as the action has dropped for want of a small sum for fees, no prejudice to a question before a Court of Law can now attend the publication of Matilda letters, and I feel it due to myself to make known the motives and extent of my interference in the matter, after the misrepresentation in your Paper.'