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was made; and no mention of him was made in Mr Norton's letter to me; which letter distinctly states, that my brother's solicitor having informed him I had my mother's legacy, therefore he will break the agreement. He does not say, 'you have had money given you by Lord Melbourne's family, therefore I stop your allowance.' He says, 'you have got a legacy from your mother; share it with me, or I will force you to share it, by non-payment of what I owe you;' nor was it 'after I had enjoyed it some time,' but on the contrary, at the exact date of receipt of my mother's property, that Mr Norton fulfilled his threat: as he expressly says that he did not know, till he saw my bankers' account, that I had Lord Melbourne's bequest—he admits that my mother's annuity was his only reason.
Now this agreement, about which so much has been said, was based on the single stipulation, not that I should be richer, but that he should be poorer; poorer by one thousand a-year, being the value of the office to which he was named by Lord Melbourne. My being richer certainly did not make him poorer; on the contrary, at my mother's death, the small portion I derived from my father went to him, and not to me. He gives his own account of my previous conduct in money matters, most plausibly, and most falsely; the exact and witnessed truth being, that during the two years 1836 and 1837, I had not one single farthing from Mr Norton; that he then employed Sir John Bayley, who had been his counsel, to arbitrate as to my allowance and all other matters; that he would not abide by the arbitration; made what allowance he pleased; and advertised me (to guard himself from further liability) in the public papers—being I believe the only person of his own rank in life who ever adopted such a measure. I copy two sentences from a declaration with which Sir John Bayley has lately furnished me, in contradiction at once of the whole fabrication respecting my conduct in these matters:—
'I was appointed arbitrator on Mr Norton's behalf, in the year 1837, having been counsel for him; and thus became intimately acquainted with the circumstance of these disputes. Mr Norton gave me at that time a written promise to abide by my decision. He broke his promise, and refused to hold himself bound by the pledges given …… consider Mr Norton's conduct to his wife, so far as it has come under my knowledge and cognisance, to have been marked with the grossest cruelty, injustice, and inconsistency.'
It is with pain I approach that portion of Mr Norton's letter, in which he has chosen to make reference to our son. I think my sons' names should have been held sacred in this dreary quarrel; which began in their childhood, and which their manhood finds unreconciled! My son is not yet in England; nor was he in England at the time Mr Norton states he had these communications with him. I utterly deny that I ever made him the channel of a falsehood to his father;
