ation of them; nor do I, to speak fairly,
think that the want of it affords the smallest ground of offence.
As to the yeomanry arrangements, it does not seem to me possible
that the day of this motion could have been fixed in time to enable
you to reconcile those two engagements.

I shall be sorry if you are absent from the discussion of this
Bill, for a thousand reasons that make one wish you present at it,
and I still hope you will contrive to run up for that night only.
But if that really cannot be, I will very willingly hold your
proxy, supposing that I do not in the interval (and it is now
little likely I should) receive some one that I cannot transfer. I
now hold only Lord Carysfort's.

On the other subject on which you write to me it is more difficult
to advise. The least troublesome course no doubt is that which I
have always pursued--to treat, and unaffectedly to consider, the
whole tribe of newspaper libellers as unworthy of the smallest
notice. And this was, on the first impression, the opinion which I
expressed the other day to my brother, who wrote to me on this
matter, in consequence of something your son had said to him. On
reflection I do not feel as sure as at first, that I was right in
this opinion, as applicable to your case and to the Aylesbury
paper. To any idea of a complaint against him in the House of Lords
I feel utterly averse. My recollection does not serve me to
remember any instance since Lord Sandwich and Bishop Warburton in
the beginning of the last reign, in which the House has interfered
in case of general libel. I myself brought a printer before them
for an attack on Bishop Watson, but then that, if I am not
mistaken, was a case of attack for words _spoken in Parliament_,
and not for general political conduct. If you prosecute, the right
course is certainly that of _information_ in the King's Bench; for
it would be most unseemly to allege that your character has really
been _endamaged_ by such ribaldry.

On the question itself, whether to prosecute or not, I really feel
myself incompetent to advise. I have already said that my first
impression was against it, but further consideration of the subject
has so shaken that opinion, that I should be sorry now you laid the
least stress upon it. Every man who goes into a court of law, and
especia