SEPARATION FROM DANEBURY 95 



willingly leave untouched, content with what I have 

 said on the subject in my previous work, were it not 

 that the matter has been grievously misrepresented. I 

 may at all events relate some of the more interesting and 

 important circumstances connected with this memorable 

 event. There were many reasons given for his leaving 

 his old quarters, and, as in other like cases, those that 

 seemed the most plausible and probable were wrong. 

 Eumour asserted my brother John betted more than he 

 ought to have done, and in doing so betrayed the secrets 

 of the stable. But this did not consequentially follow. 

 Furthermore, it has been said that he had written two 

 letters, one to his commissioner and one to Lord George 

 on the same subject, but in different terms. To the 

 former he said : ' Lay against So and So for me ; he is 

 hors de combat, and won't run;' and to his lordship he 

 said : ' So and So is well, and I recommend you strongly 

 to back him.' The letters, as a novelist would say, by 

 some unknown, strange, and overpowering agency, found 

 their way into envelopes for which they were not in- 

 tended, and the treachery complained of was discovered. 

 Now, as I lived at Danebury at the time, if such a thing 

 had occurred, I should most likely have heard something 

 of it ; but I must confess I never did, until reading it 

 many years after in Mr. Eice's misleading book, ' The 

 History of the British Turf.' I do not impute to the 

 memory of a genial and accomplished writer on other 

 matters, any ill intention beyond that of writing in utter 

 ignorance on a painful matter. 



In short, the whole story is a fabrication pure and 

 simple from one end of it to the other. That my brother 

 did bet, I admit, and also that for doing so Lord George 

 disliked him very much, and continually pestered my 

 father to get rid of him ; but not only for betting, but 



