Autograph Letter Signed ('Fitzhardinge') from William Fitzhardinge Berkeley, 1st Earl FitzHardinge, complaining to the editor of the Bristol Times [Joseph Leech] of misrepresentation in a letter by his brother the MP Grantley Berkeley.

2pp., 4to. In good condition, on aged paper, with traces of mount at head. The Earl and his brother loathed one another. FitzHardinge was a notorious philanderer, and Berkeley - whose violent behaviour included assaulting the bookseller Fraser and duelling with Maginn - held his position as a Member of Parliament to spite him. The letter begins: 'Sir. | You have published a letter from Mr. Grantley Berkeley in your Paper, a short time since, in which he asserts his knowledge of the quarter whence arises a vindictive persecution, and whence come funds for the support of an action for seduction, and in a comment, you distinctly apply this insinuation to me, and ascribe to me an interference hardly fraternal. The correspondence which I now enclose [not present] (the only communication I have ever held) will enable you to judge of the truth of the insinuation in Mr. Berkeley's letters, and as the action has dropped for want of a small sum for fees, no prejudice to a question before a Court of Law can now attend the publication of Matilda letters, and I feel it due to myself to make known the motives and extent of my interference in the matter, after the misrepresentation in your Paper.'