2$ APPENDIX. 



February 1839, that being the day on which I subsequently 

 received from the Rev. Mr. Forshall the communication No. 

 11. In reply to this invitation I sent the following note : — 



No. 14. 



Dear Sir, 



My friend, Mr. Thomas Young, tells me that in consequence 

 of his calling to consult you respecting certain legal proceedings pending 

 against myself for words spoken at his dinner-table, that you have proposed 

 we should both breakfast with you to-morrow.* In reluctantly declining 

 your invitation, I trust that you will not impute my so doing to any disin- 

 clination to effect an amicable arrangement of the matter in dispute, but 

 as I suppose you will be one of the witnesses opposed to me on the trial, I 

 do not think it would be expedient for me to enter upon a discussion of the 

 subject with you previously to the action coming on. 

 I remain dear Sir, 



Yours very faithfully, 



EDWARD CHARLESWORTH. 

 Rev. Dr. Buckland. 



Between the dates of my receiving this invitation to be a 

 guest at Dr. Buckland's breakfast-table, and the Doctor's de- 

 claration that he wouldbemyprosecutorif Mr. Hawkins would 

 not, I had committed no crime except that of declining to 

 compromise the action, by retracting an opinion which I could 

 only retract at the expense of a violation of moral principle. 



When I commenced this Appendix, as the action, though 

 virtually, was not legally abandoned, I had resolved not to 

 advance anything which might be construed into an attempt 

 to prejudice my adversary's cause ; but a reconsideration of 

 the whole subject, has induced me to change this determi- 

 nation. As the case now stands, it wears an aspect which 

 is, perhaps, hardly just to all the parties concerned, and I 

 therefore think it the better course, to remove at once the 

 mystery which hangs over the affair, by frankly stating some 

 of the reasons which have led me to form a conclusion so 

 essentially at variance with the spirit of the resolution en- 

 tered on the minutes of the British Museum, by the Honor- 

 able Board of Trustees. Had I done this immediately upon 

 my being served with the writ, and before the time arrived 

 for my prosecutor to lay his case before a Jury, this step 

 might, perhaps, have afforded Mr. Hawkins some reasonable 

 ground of complaint ; but after the annoyance to which I have 

 been subjected, and as twelve months have gone by since the 



' Dr. Buckland's interference did not originate with this call of Mr. 

 Young's, but some time previously to it. 



