Letter – Willoughby Gordon to Charles Grey – 27 Jan 1824

The Earl Grey.                            				H. Guards. Janry 27 1824



My dear Lord 

      I have yours of the 25th and join the whole I think it as well that I had not the cooperation of any other person.

      I have a letter from your brother, the General, and have this day told him what has passed.

      I return all the papers from 1-7 having kept copies of the whole.

      I declare also the whole of the recent correspondence which I have corrected of such part as should not go beyond you and me, and which you can send to your friends as you please.  I have shown it some of mine, there is not the slightest shade of difference of opinion upon the Case.

      I am prepared to have a Demand made upon me either by Mr Beaumont or his friends (and I am surprized that it has not been made) for my reasons for my opinion of his mental delusion, and when this comes, he shall have it thick and threefold.

      A Man may be of a very malignant, mischievous disposition and of a very ungovernable temper and very wrong headed, but for all that I have no right to proclaim him and treat him as a madman; he may say that my temper etc etc etc is similar to his own.

      But if any Man professes to act under the influence of a Vision or a Dream that instant he places his Conduct beyond my reach or comprehension and one of us must be mad and which the World will duly judge.  Super human agency is not admitted as a reason for worldly conduct.

      This is my anchor in this Sea of confusion, and it is the only one on which I can safely trust. I feel that I have this unhappy man fast in my Gripe, and I shall not fail to pinch him if he attempts to become dangerous.

      At the same time as I said to Swinburne, I do not set myself up as the Guardian of his family.  It is much too broad a position to lay down, that because a man is once under a mental delusion upon a particular point, that he is to be so upon all others, or always even upon that point, and therefore I think it becomes Sir John and his sons to be cautious of him and themselves.

      I enclose a letter which I received some days since from Sir John - why did he open the letter from Mr B?  Why not return it as he did the first?  Why not caution Mr B against a repetition of these intrusions?

      These are points which a Man careful of his honor should look to.

      To sit down, and moan, and be pitied at even by a Madman will not do: and involved as the business now is, it becomes Sir J to display the utmost temper and the most decided resolution.

      It was in this feeling that I wrote my letter to him yesterday and I could not with propriety say more.

      I suppose you made your Son Charles acquainted with all those things: it will do him no harm, and he may be useful in copying.

      Ever yours with the highest respect and regard

      JWG



PS I cannot complete the recent correspondence before tomorrow  JWG