INTRODUCTION 



In a deed box at Goodwood there has lain, undisturbed for 

 many years, a bundle of old papers and letters, tattered and 

 discoloured with age, and in some cases almost illegible, but 

 possessing for myself a most absorbing interest, for they 

 represent all that remains to chronicle the forgotten glories 

 of the old Charlton Hunt. And though I feel that the 

 matter contained in them must be of greater interest to 

 local sportsmen than to the hunting world in general, yet I 

 have been tempted to reproduce them as nearly as possible 

 word for word with the originals ; for it seemed to me, as I 

 struggled with the queer crabbed writing of the old yellow 

 manuscripts, that the quaint spelling and phraseology would 

 surely have some degree of fascination for hunting men of 

 the present day, many of whom would find constant 

 mention of their forbears throughout these pages. 



But had it not been for the assistance given me in my 

 researches by a most excellent and concise Uttle pamphlet 

 entitled ' Charlton and the Charlton Hunt,' published some 

 years ago by Mr. T. I. Bennett, my task would have been 

 much harder ; and so, bearing this in mind, I place the said 

 pamphlet before the reader first of all, forming as it does a 

 key to much that follows. 



The Agreement between the Second Duke of Richmond 



xi 



