76 The Pytchley Htmt, Past and Present, [chap. h. 



" Expressing my warmest and most grateful thanks for 

 tlie kindness you showed me at Northampton^ 

 '* I am, dear and Rev. Sir, 



'' Yours very truly, 



'ai. Couch/' 



Colonel W. Cartwright, to whom it fell, as Chairman 

 of Quarter Sessions, to pass sentence on Couch at each of 

 the trials at Northampton, about the same time received 

 from another soldier a letter so opposite in its character 

 to those given above, and yet so unique in its phraseology, 

 tlmt the reader of these pages must not be deprived of 

 the benefit of it. An old serjeant in the Rifle Brigade, 

 living at Weedon, wishing to fish in a small stream 

 which ran through one or two meadows occupied by the 

 gallant officer, thus addressed him : — 



"Weedon Barracks, May 12th, 1856. 



" HoNOUEABLE SiR, — A discharged serjeant of the Rifle 

 Brigade, and one who had the honour of serving in 

 the same company, and in more than one campaign under 

 the command of the gallant and much lamented Captain 

 Cartwright (killed in the Crimea), now makes bold to 

 solicit of his honoured and bereaved parent a written 

 permission to angle of an evening in that wealthy brook, 

 which, pursuing its way by Divine Will through your 

 honour's extensive domains, encourages and compensates 

 the fertilizing efforts of your Honour's tenants, adds a 

 cheerful vivacity to the face of nature, seasonably serene, 

 and furnishes of its finny population many impressive 

 convictions of the kind, unceasiog regard of our great 

 Creator in the various sustenance, delicate and in- 

 vigorating, for the more worthy portion of His laborious 

 creatures. 



