Before going further, it may be as well to say regarding The Earl that, on its two-year-old form, according to "The Book," it did not seem to possess any great chance of winning the Derby; as a two-year-old it ran twelve races and won four of them. But as a three-year-old the horse made a better mark, as it won six times out of seven, beating Bluegown in the Newmarket Biennial referred to.
From the answer returned to the Admiral's letter, it became known that the Marquis of Hastings being under large pecuniary obligations to Mr. Padwick, that gentleman held some of the unfortunate nobleman's horses in his power, The Earl being included in the number—the particular bond of obligation being a "bill of sale." Mr. Padwick explains that the money won by The Earl—which it was thought prudent should run in his colours rather than those of the Marquis—was placed to a separate account at Weatherby's, "and every shilling appropriated by the Messrs. Weatherby to the payment of the forfeits and engagements of the horses sold to various persons by Lord Hastings, under Lord Exeter's conditions. Even the winnings of the animals I purchased at his public sale (one-third of which the Marquis became entitled to) were paid over to Messrs. Weatherby to the private account of the Marquis; and I have further contributed the sum of £1,400 out of my own pocket, up to this moment, to enable him to keep faith with the public."
The Admiral did not take the trouble to write a long reply to this letter; a few curt lines, returning "the enclosures" (letters received at different times from Messrs. Weatherby on the subject of his own account), were all that were vouchsafed.
Mr. Padwick, after the lapse of a fortnight, again addressed himself to Admiral Rous; but the latter gentleman, having evidently conceived a strong opinion on the case, only wrote in a way to indicate that to that opinion he was quite determined to adhere, as the following extract will show: "In your letter of the 30th of September you refer, among other matters, to a bill of sale from Lord Hastings to yourself. A copy of this document is now before me, and I am bound to tell you that, having regard to the terms and other circumstances of the case, I do not feel justified in saying more at present than that, for the sake of everybody, it is essential that the facts should be thoroughly sifted by the examination of all parties before the tribunal to which you yourself have advised Mr. Day to appeal."
But the facts of the case never were expiscated in any court of justice; the legal proceedings which Messrs. Vallance & Vallance had been instructed by Mr. John Day of Danebury to commence were never instituted, as the following brief letters will show.
From Mr. John Day to the editor of The Times:
"On the 16th of June last a letter appeared in your columns from Admiral Rous, under the title of 'Admiral Rous on the Turf,' containing reflections on me and my family. I have now to request the favour of your giving publicity to a letter which has been addressed to me by the Admiral, withdrawing his former letter, and a copy of which I beg to enclose."
The following is a copy of the letter referred to:
"As the legal proceedings pending between us have been stopped by you, I now withdraw my letter published in The Times newspaper on the 16th of June; and the fact of my having addressed a second letter to the editor on the same day requesting him not to insert the first, is a proof that I did not consider myself justified in desiring it to be published."
These letters reveal a curious ending to what might have proved, had it been suffered to become public, one of the most remarkable "cases" ever investigated in a court of law. One of the public journals of the time, in speaking of the withdrawal of Mr. Day's action, said: "The action is withdrawn, and the letter is withdrawn, but whether the action is withdrawn on condition of the letter being also withdrawn, or whether the letter is withdrawn on condition of the action being withdrawn, and which withdrawal was first proposed and first accepted, and from which side the surrender was suggested, we, at any rate, know not." But it certainly seems, from a passage in the Admiral's letter, that the trainer had the best of it. "The fact of my having addressed a second letter to the editor (of The Times) on the same day," writes the Admiral, "requesting him not to insert the first, is a proof that I did not consider myself justified in desiring it to be published."