14 APPENDIX. 



personal friends of Mr. Hawkins's. Had a previous intimation 

 been given me of this, I should either have declined answering 

 the questions altogether, or I should have so shaped my re- 

 plies that no unfair advantage could be taken of what I said. 

 From the tenour of what passed on the occasion, I was pre- 

 pared to hear farther of the matter, and a short time afterwards 

 I was written to, and invited to retract my opinion, or to state 

 what I could in its justification ; the party writing to me being 

 one of those who had in the first instance questioned me. In 

 replying to this letter I had no suspicion that legal proceed- 

 ings were in contemplation. I subsequently, however, under- 

 stood, that Mr. Hawkins intended to move for a criminal 

 information against me ; and shortly afterwards I received 

 the following letter from Mr. Robert Young, sen., the father 

 of the gentleman at whose house I was a guest, and one of 

 the party present at the dinner-table when the conversation 

 alluded to arose. 



No. 5. 



31 Deer. 1838, 



46, Nelson Square. 



Dear Sir, 



I have exchanged a letter with Mr. Hawkins on the subject 

 which has lately caused so much unhappy discussion between the parties 

 concerned, and into which I need not now enter. Mr. H. has consented 

 to suspend the matter for a week, but he requires terms on which I wish to 

 have some conversation with you, and if you will breakfast with me here 

 tomorrow morning at a quarter past 8, I think we shall be likely to ascer- 

 tain what is to be done better than by writing. 



If you cannot come to breakfast, I will endeavour to call on you in 

 the course of tomorrow ; three o'clock to half past would suit me, if you 

 will say where. In the mean time I am, 



Yours faithfully, 



ROBT. YOUNG. 



That Mr. Young, sen., was actuated by the very best mo- 

 tives in this attempt to bring about an aiTangement of the 

 affair, there cannot be a doubt; but he had received no au- 

 thority from me to enter into negociations with Mr. Hawkins, 

 and had he consulted me previously to his doing so, I should 

 have told him that so far as I was concerned, no advances 

 whatever should be made to arrest the course which Mr. 

 Hawkins proposed to take. ^ No other result therefore arose 



^ There were no grounds on which Mr. Hawkins could have obtained a 

 rule for a criminal information ; the only course open to him being that of 

 a civil action. 



