Letter – Charles Grey to John Lambton – 4 Sep 1823

My dear Lambton

       I cannot express to you how much I have been affected by your letter.  <You> could not have written with more real warmth of kindness & affection & it is most gratifying to me to have such a proof of the feelings by which you are influenced.  Believe that I am most grateful for it, & never can forget it.

       I of course can have heard nothing yet from Beaumont nor can I, in all probability before Saturday.  I am going to pass the interval at Cassiobury, from whence I can be reached if necessary in three or four hours.  Nobody can calculate on the conduct of such a Man.  Certainly the Swinburnes are, as we say in the North, first owers; but the young one has not shown much <di …tion> to recent B’s conduct as anybody else wd have done, & the matter now evidently rests on the manner in which he may take my letter.  I think the probability is that I may have another long rigmarole from him, & tho’ I shall delay any further correspondence if he takes the course of writing & does not come to Town, it is clear that the thing will go off.  If he comes with a determination to proceed hostilely, there will not be time to send for you, & tho’ it wd be a great comfort to me to have you here, it is perhaps better that you should be near Louisa, in case anything should happen to me.  I have not yet spoken to anybody but Holland who is going out of Town & who would not do to build <operations>, tho as to every thing else his advice & judgement are excellent. If necessary, therefore, I shall send either the <Officer> I <…..> probably the former as being the nearest.  I am persuaded, however, that there will be no such necessity, tho’ it is myself to look to its probability & to be prepared for it.  If in the meantime B has written a similar to the General, I think the matter will be cut very short.

       You may depend upon my writing the moment I have any thing to say, & in my concealing nothing from you.  If I have time tonight, at Cassiobury, I will copy B’s letter & send it to you by tomorrow’s Post.  I cannot part with the original whilst this business remains in <suspense>.

       I rejoice at the continuance of your good fortune.  Fortune seems to be running & will I hope have a victory soon. Dr Syntax 

 	Yours &c

       Grey.



I don’t know whether I told you that I began reading B’s letter to Lady G having no conception of what it was to contain, & could not stop.  She therefore knows the whole and may probably have mentioned it to Louisa.