CHAP, ir.] H. Coitch^ s Remarkable Letters. 65 



^'June 10th, 1851. 

 "Eev. Sir, — Not to my knowledge having a friend 

 upon earth to whom I could apply for a favour in any 

 case of emergency, I have been prevailed upon to do 

 violence to that native modesty which has marked every 

 action of my life to apply to you to befriend me with a 

 copy of the depositions taken at Mr. Congreve's office 

 on Friday last. My situation in this establishment is 

 not a yery enviable one, being incarcerated within the 

 four walls of a small cell, with a six-inch door and 

 sundry bars of iron between myself and liberty. 

 Another walk from Stony Stratford to Passenham 

 would afford an agreeable relief. I heard related, at 

 Stony Stratford the other day, by a person of most 

 retentive memory, a part of a sermon delivered by your- 

 self, in which you stated, 'that it often struck you how 

 the devil must laugh when he sees so many thousands 

 posting hourly and momentarily the downward path to 

 perdition.^ I entirely agree with you j and it has 

 recently struck me that his mirth must have been 

 extreme when he saw me posting down the road from 

 Passenham to Panshanger, on the afternoon of the third 

 ultimo : he must have enjoyed, a double-barrelled laugh 

 then, one at me, the other at your Reverence. Pray, 

 Sir, take great care of yourself before the Sessions. I 

 am given to understand that you are partial to the noble 

 sport of fox-hunting. It is doubtless an invigorating 

 amusement ; but if in one of these excursions you should 

 happen to break your neck over a gate or hurdle, 

 though it would be consistent with my profession as a 

 Christian to forgive that gate, I certainly should never 

 forget it.'^ 



