button to main menu  Greenwood and Hodgson 13.9.1823

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Westmorland Gazette, 13 September 1823:-
  letter from C Greenwood
TO MR. HODGSON'S SUBSCRIBER.
SIR, - Giving the words of a celebrated [wit] their truest application, I may say to you, [that I] should justly be suspected of motives of more [than] common enmity towards your friend, were I [to at]tempt to promote a continuance of your writing [in] his defence. You have done his cause more [harm] than you are aware of, by leading him into [an ex]posure he might otherwise have avoided; - and [now], covered with disgrace, defeated and dismayed, you shrink from the post at the very time, were you good for any thing, you would have been the most [wanted.] You have commenced a warfare: You have exposed your cause to open attack; but, finding yourself insufficient to sustain your ground, [you have like all] other cowards, deserted your [ranks] - discharging, in a last desperate volley, the remnant of your wretched missiles.
And do you not mean to return, either to [support] or apologize for your assertions? Are you and your friends privileged to calumniate and traduce character and reputation with impunity? Have you not charged me with parodying Holy Writ? Th[en] you will not support this charge, or retract it? or, to use your own words, what are the people of th[is] county to think of you? Will you not inform me what you mean by your insinuation about losing the plan of the vicinity of Kirkby Stephen, and of its loss being supplied? If such plan has been lost, and its place improperly filled, there are parties who must be answerable for it; and to these parties I have written, (enclosing a copy of your insinuations,) demanding from them an explanation, the result of which shall be made known to the public; to whom, for their satisfaction, and to my Surveyors, for the preservation of their professional characters, I hold myself bound to do justice in the station I have the honour to fill. I will not prejudge the case; but should it happen that this, like the rest of your [ful]mination, has its origin in falsehood, you will be held up to the contempt of every good man. To the public, not to you, I consider it necessary to [state] that the vicinity of Kirkby Stephen was surveyed by two of my most confidential Assistants; one of whom (a brother) has been in my employ eleven years; the other, though an apprentice, is extremely clever, and has practiced without intermission in the station he now fills, with every necessary superintendence, for a period of nearly four years. They both have hitherto acquitted themselves in a manner highly satisfactory to their employers, in their respective departments. In order to show that no error of the kind that has been insinuated, can ultimately pass without [detec]tion, I will also observe, that when the [Abstracts from] the Diagrams are distributed, [each party pursues his] own particular field of operation; and, on [completion] of the same, they are regularly signed and tra[nsferred.] I have, therefore, the opportunity when a complaint of this kind is preferred, of commanding [an appropri]ate explanation; and, from my knowledge of the party thus accused, and the opinion I have formed of the disposition and character of their accusers, I [have] the fullest confidence of a satisfactory result.
Your quotation of a paragraph which appeared in the Kendal Papers some time ago, and your [remark]ing upon it in the citation, as you proceed, [is the] strongest evidence of an exhausted argument, [if an] argument it can be called. On what, indeed, do [you] remark, as you proceed? Nothing more than [what] has arisen purely out of an error of the press; and not in the paper you receive, but the others. Your own paper would not answer your purpose in this case, because the error did not exist. And [are] you driven to such materials as these? [Miserable] subterfuge! And do you talk about Christian countries? Your next observation is in character with the others. What is there incon[sistent in the] yearly expenditure of a concern equally the [capital] required to be constantly sunk in it? We [anticipate] the expence of the whole work at about Two Hundred Thousand Pounds. And did you suppose we had no return from the publication of about [four] Counties a year? it is indeed high time for you to quit the subject, altogether above your comprehension.
C. GREENWOOD.
Penrith, Sept. 12, 1823.
Also in the Kendal Chronicle 13 September 1823.

Summary

from - C Greenwood
to - A Subscriber
SURVEYING METHODS I'm investigating the (possible) lost 'diagrams' of Kirkby Stephen
GRAND SCHEME expenditure, such things are above your comprehension
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