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'Lord Eldon had appointed me Commissioner of Bankrupts in 1827, and when such appointment was abolished by the construction of the Bankruptcy Court in 1830 or 1831, I considered that I had some claim on the Home Secretary, having received no compensation for the loss of my situation.'
Both these sentences are directly contrary to the real facts.
By Mr Norton's express wish and desire, I wrote at that time, not only to Lord Melbourne, but to all those friends I thought might serve us. I wrote to Lord Holland, Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Devonshire, and others, to make interest with Lord Brougham (then Lord Chancellor) to get Mr Norton a legal appointment. This not appearing probable, we asked for a Commissionership of Excise or Customs. We did not succeed in this second request any more than the first; but when Mr Wyatt, a police magistrate, died, Lord Melbourne wrote to me to offer the vacant magistracy. On the 18th April, 1831, Lord Melbourne wrote me word, that the Chancellor had sent his secretary to inquire respecting this matter; and had intimated that he should expect Mr Norton to resign his Commissionership of Bankrupts; Lord Melbourne added, 'this is not so agreeable, but still was to be expected, and is perhaps not unfair in these reforming times; and I mention it that you may not be surprised when you receive the intelligence.'
Mr Norton was disappointed, and demurred; he desired to hold both appointments; I wrote again to Lord Melbourne to state this, and received in reply the following note:—
'Take my advice, and make Norton write a line immediately to the Lord Chancellor, giving up his Commissionership. What you cannot keep, it is always best to give up with a good grace.
The statement, therefore, made by Mr Norton, is entirely fictitious; and if I notice it, it is to ask what reliance can be placed on all the other mis-statements in which blind wrath, imperfect memory, and utter irresolution have involved him ] Mr Norton calls his published letter a 'Vindication': a man of keener moral perceptions would have felt, when he wrote it, that he was not writing his defence—but his confession.
From beginning to end it is a tissue of degrading admissions, or incorrect assertions: of which the contradiction, I am thankful to say, does not rest on my helpless denial, but on the clearest disproof.
Mr Norton admits that we did not part on Lord Melbourne's account in 1836; but that he took then, as he takes now, any slander he could find, to involve me in undeserved shame and disgrace. He admits that he solicited my return after the trial, in a familiar, jesting, and caressing correspondence,—even while he repeats as true the gross slanders of 17 years ago! He admits that he had no stipulation whatever with
