Who could imagine, that I, who am the oldest colonel in the service, had asked for the rank of a general officer in the army of the king my father, and that it had been refused me! I am sorry, much more than sorry, to be obliged to break in upon your leisure, and to trespass thus a second time on the attention of your majesty. But I have, sir, an interest in my character more valuable to me than the throne, and dearer, far dearer to me than life. I am called upon by that interest to persevere, and I pledge myself never to desist till I receive that satisfaction which the justice of my claim leads me to expect. In these unhappy times, the world, sir, examines the conduct of princes with a jealous, a scrutinizing, a malignant eye. No man is more aware than I am of the existence of such a disposition, and no man is, therefore, more determined to place himself above all suspicion. In desiring to be placed in a forward situation, I have performed one duty to the people of England; I must now perform another, and humbly supplicate your majesty to assign those reasons which have induced you to refuse a request which appears to me and to the world so reasonable and so rational. I must again repeat my concern that I am obliged to continue a correspondence which, I fear, is not so grateful to your majesty as I could wish. I have examined my own heart-I am convinced of the justice of my cause-of the purity of my motives. Reason and honour forbid me to yield where no reason is alledged, I am justified in the conclusion that none can be given. In this candid exposition of the feelings which have agitated and depressed my wounded mind, I hope no expression has escaped me which can be construed to mean the slightest disrespect to your majesty. I most solemnly disavow any such intention; but the circumstances of the times-the danger of invasionthe appeal which has been made to all your subjects, oblige me to recollect what I owe to my own ho nour and to my own character, and to state to your majesty, with plainness, truth, and candour, but with the submission of a subject, and the duty of an affectionate son, the injuries under which I labour, which it is in the power of your majesty alone at one moment to redress. It is with the sentiments of the profoundest veneration and respect, that I have the honour to subscribe myself, Your majesty's most dutiful G. P. Brighton, 2d Oct. 1803. My dear brother, By the last night's Gazette, which I have this moment received, I perceive that an extensive promotion has taken place in the army, wherein my pretensions are not noticed; a circumstance which, whatever may have happened upon other occasions, it is impossible for me to pass by, at this momentous crisis, without ob servation. My standing in the army, according to the most ordinary routine of promotion, had it been followed up, would have placed me either at the bottom of the list of generals, or at the head of the list of lieutenant generals. When the younger branches of of my family are promoted to the highest military situations, my birth, according to the distinctions usually conferred on it, should have placed me first on that list. I hope you know me too well, to imagine that idle inactive rank is in my view; much less is the direction and patronage of the military departments an object which suits my place in the state, or my inclinations; but, in a moment when the danger of the country is thought by government so urgent as to call forth the energy of every man in its defence, I cannot but feel myself de graded, both as a prince and as a soldier, if I am not allowed to take a forward and distinguished part in the defence of that empire and crown, of the glory, prosperity, and even existence of that people in all which mine is the greatest stake. To be told I may display this zeal solely and simply at the head of my regiment, is a degrading mockery. If that be the only situation alloted me, I shall certainly do my duty, as others will; but the considerations to which I have already alluded entitle me to expect, and bind me in every way to require, a situation more correspondent to the dignity of my own character and to the public expectations. It is for the sake of tendering my services in a way more formal and official than I have before pursued, that I address this to you, my dear brother, as the commander in chief, by whose counsels the constitution presumes that the military department is administered. If those who have the honour to advise his majesty on this occasion, shall deem my pretensions, among those of all the royal family, to be the only one fit to be rejected and disdained, I may at least hope, as a debt of justice and honour, to have it explained, that I am laid by in virtue of that judgment, and not in consequence of any omission or want of energy on my part, &c. &c. &c. (Signed) G. P. W. His Royal Highness the Duke of York, &c. Horse Guards, Oct. 6, 1803. Dearest brother, Nothing but an extraordinary press of business would have prevented me from acknowledging sooner your letter of the 2d instant, which I received, while at Oatlands, on Monday evening. I trust that you are too well acquainted with my affection for you, which has existed since our most tender years, not to be assured of the satisfaction I have felt, and ever must feel, in forwarding, when in my power, every desire or object of your's; and, therefore, will believe how much I must regret the impossibility there is, upon the present occasion, of my executing your wishes of laying the representation contained in your letter before his majesty. Suffer me, my dearest brother, as the only answer that I can properly give you, to recal to your memory what passed upon the same subject soon after his majesty was graciously pleased to place me at the head of the army; and I have no doubt that, with your usual candour, you will yourself see the absolute necessity of my declining it. In the year 1795, upon a general promotion taking place, at your instance, I delivered a letter from you to his majesty; urging your pretensions to promotion in the army; ay to which his majesty was pleased to answer, that before he had appointed you to the command of the 10th light dragoons, he had caused it to be fully explained to you what his sentiments were with respect to a prince of Wales entering into the army, and the public grounds upon which he could never admit of your considering it as a profession, or of your being promoted in the service. And his majesty, at the same time, added his positive command and injunctions to me, never to mention this subject again to him, and to decline being the bearer of any application of the same nature, should it be proposed to me; which message I was, of course, under the necessity of delivering to you, and have constantly made it the rule of my conduct ever since; and, indeed, I have ever considered it as one of the greatest proofs of affection and consideration towards me, on the part of his majesty, that he never allowed me to become a party in this business. Having thus stated to you, fairly and candidly, what has passed, I trust you will see that there can be no grounds for the apprehension expressed in the latter part of your letter, that any slur can attach to your character as an officer-particularly as I recollect your mentioning to me yourself, on the day on which you received the notification of your appointment to the 10th light dragoons, the explanation and condition attached to it by his majesty; and therefore, surely, you must be satisfied, that your not being advanced in military rank, proceeds entirely from his majesty's sentiments respecting the high rank you hold in the state, and not from any impression unfavourable to you. Believe me ever, with the greatest truth, Dearest brother, Your most affectionate brother, His Royal Highness the Brighton, Oct. 9, 1803. I have taken two days to consider the contents of your letter of the 6th inst. in order to be as accurate as possible in my answer, which must account to you for its being longer, perhaps, than I intended, or I could have wished. I confide entirely in the personal kindness and affection expressed in your letter, and am, for that reason, the more unwilling to trouble you again on a painful subject, in which you are not free to act, as your inclination, I am sure, would lead you. But, as it is not at all improbable, that every part of this transaction may be publicly canvassed hereafter, it is of the utmost importance to my honour, without which I can have no happiness, that my conduct in it shall be fairly represented, and correctly understood. When I made a tender of my services to his majesty's ministers, it was with a just and natural expectation, that my offer would have been accepted, in the way in which alone it could have been most beneficial to my country, or creditable to myself: or, if that failed, that at least (in justice to me) the reasons for a refusal would have been distinctly stated; so that the nation might be satisfied, that nothing had been omitted on my part, and enabled to judge of the validity of the reasons assigned assigned for such refusal. In the first instance, I was referred to his majesty's will and pleasure; and now I am informed, by your letter, that before he had appointed me to the command of the 10th light dragoons, he had caused it to be fully explained to me, what his sentiments were with respect to a prince of Wales entering into the army." It is impossible, my dear brother, that I should know all that passed between the king and you; but, I perfectly recollect the statement you made of the conversation you had had with his majesty, and which strictly corresponds with that in your letter now before me. But I must, at the same time, recal to your memory, my positive denial, at that time, of any condition or stipulation having been made, upon my first coming into the army; and I am in possession of full and complete documents, which prove that no terms whatever were then proposed, at least to me, whatever might have been the intention: and the communications which I have found it necessary subsequently to make, have ever disclaimed the existence of such a compromise at any period, as nothing could be more averse to my nature, or more remote from my mind. As to the conversation you quote in 1796 (when the king was pleased to appoint me to succeed sir William Pitt), I have not the most slight recollection of its having taken place between us. My dear brother, if you date it right, you must be mistaken in your exact terms, or, at least, in the conclusion you draw from it; for, in the intimacy and familiarity of private conversatjon, it is not at all unlikely that I should have remembered the communication you made me the year before; but, that I should have acquiesced in, or referred to a com promise, which I never made, is utterly impossible. Neither in his majesty's letter to me, nor in his correspondence with Mr. Addington (of which you may not be fully informed), is there one word, or the most distant allusion to the condition stated in your letter; and even if I had accepted the command of a regiment on such terms, my acquiescence could only have relation to the ordinary situa tion of the country, and not to a case so completely out of all contemplation at that time, as the probable or projected invasion of this kingdom by a foreign force, sufficient to bring its safety into question. When the king is pleased to tell me," that should the enemy land, he shall think it his duty to set an example in defence of the country;" that is, to expose the only life which, for the public welfare, ought not to be hazarded, I respect and admire the principles which dictate that resolution; and as my heart glows with the same sentiments, I wish to partake in the same danger, that is, with dignity and effect. Wherever his majesty appears as king, he acts and commands; you are commander in chief; others of my family are high in military station; and even by the last brevet a considerable number of junior officers are put over me. In all these arrangements, the prince of Wales alone, whose interest in the event yields to none but that of the king, is disregarded; omitted; his services rejected. So that, in fact, he has no post or station whatsoever, in a contest, on which the fate of the Who could imagine, that I, who am the oldest colonel in the service, had asked for the rank of a general officer in the army of the king my father, and that it had been refused me! I am sorry, much more than sorry, to be obliged to break in upon your leisure, and to trespass thus a second time on the attention of your majesty. But I have, sir, an interest in my character more valuable to me than the throne, and dearer, far dearer to me than life. I am called upon by that interest to persevere, and I pledge myself never to desist till I receive that satisfaction which the justice of my claim leads me to expect. In these unhappy times, the world, sir, examines the conduct of princes with a jealous, a scrutinizing, a malignant eye. No man is more aware than I am of the existence of such a disposition, and no man is, therefore, more determined to place himself above all suspicion. In desiring to be placed in a forward situation, I have performed one duty to the people of England; I must now perform another, and humbly supplicate your majesty to assign those reasons which have induced you to refuse a request which appears to me and to the world so reasonable and so rational. I must again repeat my concern that I am obliged to continue a correspondence which, I fear, is not so grateful to your majesty as I could wish. I have examined my own heart-I am convinced of the justice of my cause of the purity of my motives. Reason and honour forbid me to yield: where no reason is alledged, I am justified in the conclusion that none can be given. In this candid exposition of the feelings which have agitated and depressed my wounded mind, I hope no expression has escaped me which can be construed to mean the slightest disrespect to your majesty. I most solemnly disavow any such intention; but the circumstances of the times-the danger of invasionthe appeal which has been made to all your subjects, oblige me to recollect what I owe to my own ho nour and to my own character, and to state to your majesty, with plainness, truth, and candour, but with the submission of a subject, and the duty of an affectionate son, the injuries under which I labour, which it is in the power of your majesty alone at one moment to redress. It is with the sentiments of the profoundest veneration and respect, that I have the honour to subscribe myself, Your majesty's most dutiful G. P. Brighton, 2d Oct. 1803. My dear brother, By the last night's Gazette, which I have this moment received, I perceive that an extensive promotion has taken place in the army, wherein my pretensions are not noticed; a circumstance which, whatever may have happened upon other occasions, it is impossible for me to pass by, at this momentous crisis, without observation. My standing in the army, according to the most ordinary routine of promotion, had it been followed up, would have placed me either at the bottom of the list of generals, or at the head of the list of lieutenant generals. When the younger branches of |