"Somerset-Place, September 14.
"You must have seen by my manner, yesterday, how much I was surprised and hurt at learning, for the first time, that Lord Grenville had, many days previous to Mr. Fox's death, decided to support Lord Percy on the expected vacancy for Westminster, and that you had since been the active agent in the canvass actually commenced. I do not like to think I have grounds to complain or change my opinion of any friend, without being very explicit, and opening my mind, without reserve, on such a subject. I must frankly declare, that I think you have brought yourself and me into a very unpleasant dilemma. You seemed to say, last night, that you had not been apprised of my intention to offer for Westminster on the apprehended vacancy. I am confident you have acted under that impression; but I must impute to you either great inattention to what fell from me in our last conversation on the subject, or great inaccuracy of recollection; for I solemnly protest I considered you as the individual most distinctly apprised, that at this moment to succeed that great man and revered friend in Westminster, should the fatal event take place, would be the highest object of my ambition; for, in that conversation I thanked you expressly for informing me that Lord Grenville had said to yourself, upon Lord Percy being suggested to him, that he, Lord Grenville, 'would decide on nothing until Mr. Sheridan had been spoken to, and his intentions known' or words precisely to that effect. I expressed my grateful sense of Lord Grenville's attention, and said, that it would confirm me in my intention of making no application, however hopeless myself respecting Mr. Fox, while life remained with him,—and these words of Lord Grenville you allowed last night to have been so stated to me, though not as a message from His Lordship. Since that time I think we have not happened to meet; at least sure I am, we have had no conversation on the subject. Having the highest opinion of Lord Grenville's honor and sincerity, I must be confident that he must have had another impression made on his mind respecting my wishes before I was entirely passed by. I do not mean to say that my offering myself was immediately to entitle me to the support of Government, but I do mean to say, that my pretensions were entitled to consideration before that support was offered to another without the slightest notice taken of me,—the more especially as the words of Lord Grenville, reported by you to me, had been stated by me to many friends as my reliance and justification in not following their advice by making a direct application to Government. I pledged myself to them that Lord Grenville would not promise the support of Government till my intentions had been asked, and I quoted your authority for doing so: I never heard a syllable of that support being promised to Lord Percy until from you on the evening of Mr. Fox's death. Did I ever authorize you to inform Lord Grenville that I had abandoned the idea of offering myself? These are points which it is necessary, for the honor of all parties, should be amicably explained. I therefore propose, as the shortest way of effecting it,—wishing you not to consider this letter as in any degree confidential,—that my statements in this letter may be submitted to any two common friends, or to the Lord Chancellor alone, and let it be ascertained where the error has arisen, for error is all I complain of; and, with regard to Lord Grenville, I desire distinctly to say, that I feel myself indebted for the fairness and kindness of his intentions towards me. My disappointment of the protection of Government may be a sufficient excuse to the friends I am pledged to, should I retire; but I must have it understood whether or not I deceived them, when I led them to expect that I should have that support.
"I hope to remain ever yours sincerely,
"R. B. SHERIDAN.
"The sooner the reference I propose the better."
The second letter, which is still further explanatory of the misconception, was addressed by Sheridan to Lord Grenville:
"MY DEAR LORD,
"Since I had the honor of Your Lordship's letter, I have received one from Mr. ——, in which, I am sorry to observe he is silent as to my offer of meeting, in the presence of a third person, in order to ascertain whether he did or not so report a conversation with Your Lordship as to impress on my mind a belief that my pretensions would be considered, before the support of Government should be pledged elsewhere. Instead of this, he not only does not admit the precise words quoted by me, but does not state what he allows he did say. If he denies that he ever gave me reason to adopt the belief I have stated, be it so; but the only stipulation I have made is that we should come to an explicit understanding on this subject,—not with a view to quoting words or repeating names, but that the misapprehension, whatever it was, may be so admitted as not to leave me under an unmerited degree of discredit and disgrace. Mr. —— certainly never encouraged me to stand for Westminster, but, on the contrary, advised me to support Lord Percy, which made me the more mark at the time the fairness with which I thought he apprised me of the preference my pretensions were likely to receive in Your Lordship's consideration.
"Unquestionably Your Lordship's recollection of what passed between Mr. —— and yourself must be just; and were it no more than what you said on the same subject to Lord Howick, I consider it as a mark of attention; but what has astonished me is, that Mr. —— should ever have informed Your Lordship, as he admits he did, that I had no intention of offering myself. This naturally must have put from your mind whatever degree of disposition was there to have made a preferable application to me; and Lord Howick's answer to your question, on which I have ventured to make a friendly remonstrance, must have confirmed Mr. ——'s report. But allow me to suppose that I had myself seen Your Lordship, and that you had explicitly promised me the support of Government, and had afterwards sent for me and informed me that it was at all an object to you that I should give way to Lord Percy, I assure you, with the utmost sincerity, that I should cheerfully have withdrawn myself, and applied every interest I possessed as your Lordship should have directed.
"All I request is, that what passed between me and Mr. —— may take an intelligible shape before any common friend, or before Your Lordship. This I conceive to be a preliminary due to my own honor, and what he ought not to evade."