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The Admiralty to Sir John Hay.
I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 27th ult. relative to your request to see certain Minutes respecting the Frazer Gun Manufacture, and to express to you their Lordships' regret that, because they felt bound on principle to reply in the negative to an official application by you as a former member of the Board of Admiralty for Minutes written since you left the Board to be submitted for your information, you should have assumed that a "personal charge" against you was on record, or that their Lordships are "convinced of the impropriety" of some act of a member of the present Board.
2. My Lords cannot admit for an instant your right either to demand to see any particular Papers for the reasons you have assigned, or, when that demand is refused, to make the assumptions contained in your letter of the 27th ult.
3. My Lords might have declined to say more on the subject, but the members of the Board whose names you have mentioned, and who were your colleagues in office, having requested that the Memorandum to which it is supposed you refer may be read by you, in order that you may see that your impressions as to its nature are unfounded, my Lords have directed that it be shown to you, if you will be good enough to call at the Admiralty for that purpose.
VERNON LUSHINGTON.
Rear-Admiral Sir J. C. D. Hay, Bart., M.P.,
108, St. George's Square, S.W.
Sir John Hay to the Admiralty.
February 4, 1870.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2nd on my return from Scotland yesterday.
