The Letters of the Duke of Wellington to Miss J., 1834-1851 / Edited, with Extracts from the Diary of the Latter

PREFACE.
The effort of the Editor throughout this volume has been to repress fancy rather than to exercise it. There has not been a word added to or taken from the letters of the Duke, even the occasional eccentricities of orthography and punctuation having been preserved.
The editing that was absolutely necessary to render coherent some of Miss J.'s lucubrations has been restricted to the excision of superfluous passages of Scripture that added nothing to the sense of the text, and the correction of the very erratic punctuation both of her diary and of the copies she has left of her own letters.
Miss J.'s copies of the Duke's epistles have been verified by comparison with the originals. In every case where the needful books and journals of reference were attainable, the Duke's statements in the letters of his comings and goings and occupations have been corroborated by contemporary data.
The particulars of Miss J.'s personal history have been derived from private family sources.
CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK.
Brooklyn, March 18, 1889.
CONTENTS.
THE LETTERS OF WELLINGTON.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
These hitherto unpublished Letters from the Duke of Wellington to Miss J., and the Diary of the latter, have lain for years in a trunk in the attic of a country-house within thirty miles of New York city. Their publication is permitted through the kindness of a friend with whose family Miss J. was remotely connected. The facts with regard to Miss J.'s life and character have been in part obtained through those who knew her personally, but mainly through her own Diary,—a worn volume once handsome, that at the first glance would be taken for a Bible. This book is supplied with a spring-lock. Its hundreds of pages are closely covered with a minute handwriting, and the ink with which they were traced has faded to a yellowish brown, indistinct in places, but never quite undecipherable. The Duke's letters are written in a peculiar, irregular hand, very difficult to read, and becoming more crabbed as he advanced in years. While the spelling is almost invariably correct, the construction of the sentences is often involved, and the punctuation follows no known method.