In that year a reckless engine, travelling between Shireoaks
and Worksop, threw out some sparks, which set fire to the underwood of
one of the Duke's plantations - for he was then Duke - and he wrote to
the Chairman of the Railway, the then Earl of Yarborough, in what
appeared to me a very haughty manner. I therefore felt bound to defend
my chief, and I took up the quarrel. In a note addressed from the
Library of the House of Commons, I asked for an interview, which was
somewhat stiffly granted. This was the note which led to our
interview: -
"CLUMBER,
"1 Decr. 1856.
"MY DEAR YARBOROUGH,
"Instead of placing the enclosed extraordinary production in the hands
of my Solicitor, I think it best, in the first instance, to send it to
you as Chairman of the M. S. & L. Railway, because I cannot believe
that either its tone or its substance can have been authorized by the
Directors.
"I am sorry to say this is not the first piece of impertinence which I
have had to complain of in reference to the damage done to my woods by
the engines of the Company, and neither Mr. Foljambe nor I have had any
encouragement to treat the matter in the amicable spirit which we were
anxious to evince.
"The demands now made by the aggressors upon the party aggrieved is
simply preposterous, and, of course, will be treated as it deserves. We
shall next have the Company, or rather, as I hope and believe, the
Company's Solicitors, demanding us to cut all our corn within 100 yards
of the line before it becomes ripe, and consequently inflammable.
"Your Solicitor knows perfectly well that the Company is by law liable
for damage done to woods; and, moreover, that such damage is
preventible by proper care on the part of its servants.
"I think the Directors ought to order their Solicitor to write to me
and others, to whom so impertinent a letter has been addressed, and beg
to withdraw it, with an apology for having sent it.
"I am sorry to trouble you with this matter, because I feel that you
ought not to be troubled with business in your present state of health;
but as you are still the Chairman, I could not with propriety write to
any other person.
"I am, my dear Yarborough,
"Yours very sincerely,
"NEWCASTLE.
"THE EARL OF YARBOROUGH, &c., &c."
Accordingly, I went to the mansion in Portman Square. I waited some
time; but at last in stalked the Duke, looking very awful indeed - so
stern and severe - that I could not help smiling, and saying - "The burnt
coppice, your Grace." Upon this he laughed, held out his hand, placed
me beside him, and we had a very long discussion, not about the fire,
but about the colliery he, then, was sinking - against the advice of
many of his friends in Sheffield - at Shireoaks; and when he had done
with that, we talked, once more, about Canada, the United States, and
the Colonies generally.
