MR. G. H. HARRISON'S EXPLANATION.

Queen's Prison, 81h October 1852.

Sni—It was by mere accident that the last week's number of your news- paper chanced to fall into my bands, in which I find you have thought fit to comment on my case before the Insolvent Court in comparison with that of a Mr. Ashby. I was not aware that it was the province of the Spectator to search out a man's misfortunes, as it appears that you have done in my case, for the mere gratification of the public, and for the purpose, as it would ap- pear, of filling up the columns of your paper. If, however, you take upon yourself to make a handle of my name in your newspaper, I trust that ycitt will at all events do me the justice to permit of my explaining myself through the same channel. With respect to my case and that of Mr. Thomas Ashby, they are very different. That gentleman availed himself of one act of Parliament, and I availed myself of another : whether the "inexorable Law" was right in his judgment in Mr. Thomas Ashby's case, I do not pretend to say, but I can say this much, that in reference to my own, he committed a most egregious

MOT'.

It is true, the "inexorable," as you call him, remanded me, as you say practically for eight months; but for what has he remanded me ? I cannot see what offence I have committed according to the provisions of the In- solvent Laws. The "inexorable" did say that I contracted Mr. Bishop's debt unfairly: if he means, because I got the guns and never paid for them was contracting a debt unfairly, I can understand him, and such may be the logic of the Insolvent Court. I will, however, tell you, Mr. Spectator, how I happened to purchase those guns. I was walking down Bond Street one -day, and Mr. Bishop was standing at the door of his shop ; when I observed, "Well, Bishop, is that you ? " Upon which Mr. Bishop exclaimed, "Oh, My dear kind soul, is that you ? why I thought you were dead—I have not seen you for these last five or six years. Do walls in, my kind soul, and tell me where you have been all this time." I accordingly, having known Mr. Bishop well for many years, went into his shop, and told him about the various wars that I had been engaged in in South America. After which, he congratulated me upon the high rank I had obtained, and said that I deserved great credit for what I had achieved. After some further conversa- tion, he stated that he had a pair of guns which would just suit me ; and having shown them to me, I told him that I had no money. He then said that he did not want any money; that he would feel proud to have my illus- trious name in his books. I, however, told him, that he might draw upon me at a month ; and the matter was concluded. Now, Sir, where is the fraud? I made no representations to Mr. Bishop, whom I had known for many years previously ; neither did I go into his shop designedly ; nor was I recommended to him, as he stated. It was by mere accident ; and as for the guns, I did not want them, and merely, took them to oblige him, because he insisted that I should do so—I had the other guns at the time, which I had bought from Mr. Cogswell, with whom I have done business for years previous to that period, and with whom I was in treaty on one occasion for thepurehase of 20,000 muskets and several cannon. Having, therefore, become honourably and lawfully the possessor of the guns, I had as much right to do what I liked with them as any other man has to mortgage a property which he buys and has not the means to pay for, a thing of everyday occurrence. Where, therefore, is the crime I have com- mitted, to warrant the "inexorable" in remanding me ? You ought to know, Mr. Spectator, that the laws of this country are only intended for the protec- tion of men using an ordinary degree of discretion in their dealings, and not for the protection of fools and sharks. If a man has the indiscretion to put butter into a dog's throat, and because it very naturally disappears, what right has he to run for revenge to the laws of his country, like as a little child would to its affectionate mamma under similar circumstances ?

With regard to my bankruptcy, which you speak of—that affair was pro- perly investigated, on my return to England from Calcutta, where I was at the time I was made bankrupt, before one of the most learned and interns gent Commissioners which we have in that department ; and had there been any dishonesty or impropriety in my transactions, he would not have granted me my certificate; which he did, notwithstanding all the animosity and op. position that was brought against me. The Commissioner in his judgment did certainly say, " this is a most extraordinary ease " ; but the extraordi- nary part of the case had reference to the fact of not one single bon& fide creditor having come forward to prove his debt ; as likewise to the fact of certain matters touching the claim of my estate of several thousands of pounds due from one of the assignees to my estate under the bank- ruptcy ; of which you will learn, by reading the judgment of the court. You likewise comment upon my imprisonment in Prussia—thinking to do me as much harm as you possibly can ; and you cite a paragraph which you say appeared in a gaper of the 8th February 1848. I never saw that paragraph before I read it in your paper of the 2d instant. The only para. graph which I ever saw respecting me was published in the Daily Hews, when I was in Gibraltar ; and the editor subsequently, in that newspaper of the 30th May 1849, inserted a letter from me to him relative thereto. I have never represented myself as an English General; nor have I ever represented myself to be otherwise than what I am always prepared to prove, 'My arrest in Prussia arose in the following manner. Pending the nego- tiation between Holstein and Denmark, I was in Holstein awaiting the order of the Stadtholders, having volunteered to lead the vanguard of the Schleswig- Holstein army. Now as matters were ultimately settled by the intervention of Austria, it was decided that the Holstein army should be disbanded. Then it was that the King of Prussia, fearful of my influence with that army, might induce me to avail myself of the opportunity of disturbing his domin- ion ,s that he decided upon my removal out of Holstein, previously to the disbandment of the troops'; and to effect this various threats and inducements were held out to me: but as I set the King of Pruasia and all his clique at defiance, he was under the necessity of having recourse to a most dirty and petty conspiracy ; of which I will now give you the history. In August 1848, I advanced an Englishman in Stockholm 52I. 10s., for which he gave me a bill on London payable to my order ; this bill I in the same year indorsed to the Hanoverian Consul at Stralsund who died a month or so afterwards, and the bill was never presented for payment. It now appears that the Ring of Prussia took advantage of my indorsement upon this bill, and accordingly caused me to be arrested in Holstein, on the charge of having forged the signature of General Plantagenet Harrison, who was asserted to be in South America; and I was accordingly arrested as an impostor' and carried off to Berlin. On my arrival at Berlin, I immediately applied to Lord West. moreland, her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador at that court, and requested that his Lordship Would demand for me an open trial. But, notwithstanding that his Lordship was in the receipt of an enormous salary "for the protec- tion of British subjects," he refused to have anything to do with me ; and I was consequently conveyed away to Stralsund, and there shut up in a small unwholesome den fronting into a small pig-stye wherein two fat pigs were kept : here I was closely confined, and not allowed to communicate with any person whatever, and fed upon potatoes and water for upwards of six months, without even being informed as to the particulars or the nature of the offence with which I was charged.

I was then served with a long statement as to the charge against me, and at the same time informed that I was to be tried in a few days from that time. One of the Judges, Mr. Nudekin, who called upon me, likewise in- formed me, that as there was no evidence against me, I was not to be tried before a jury, but only before three judges ; and that I was to be found guilty, and receive a severe sentence, on account of a'report made by Daniel Forrester, the London policeman, (of a most false and villanous nature,) which he had sent to the court through Mr. Hebler, the Prussian Consul- General in London.

I immediately, upon learning the nature of this outrage, applied to the court to be allowed time, and to be permitted to communicate with my friends in England, in order to obtain evidence in confutation of Forrestees statement : but this was at once refused me, as likewise my application to the court to be allowed to consult counsel.

I was then brought to trial, but was not allowed to make any defence ; and notwithstanding that it was clearly shown that I was not in any way liable upon the bill, owing to its never having been presented for payment when due, yet the court had the audacity to pronounce all my legalized do- cuments relative to my military rank, &e., to be forgeries ; and I was ac- cordingly pronounced guilty of being an impostor ; and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment and a heavy fine. I may here mention, that in Au- gust 1848, the Minister of War to the King of Prussia promised me a com- mission of Lieutenant-General in the Prussian army in the event of a foreign war.

It very fortunately happened, that a great many influential merchants and persons of education were present at my trial ; who, being greatly disgusted at the injustice I had experienced, and being convinced of my innocence, came forward to my assistance ; and it was through their friendship that I was enabled to send a letter to Lord Bloomfield, who had most fortunately

succeeded Lord Westmoreland as her Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin, in- forming his Lordship of my position ; when, through his Lordship's inter- cession, I was enabled to appeal for a new trial before a superior tribunal; the result of which, although I was not allowed to be present personally, was, I was not only fully acquitted, but I received a copy of the judgment of the court under the great seal of Prussia, setting forth that I was not only not guilty of the charge brought against me, but that I had fully and legally proved to the court, that I had never on any occasion whatever ap- peared or represented myself to be anything but that which in respect to which, both in rank and title, I could appear in any place or in any society. Immediately on my return to England, in October 1851, I applied to her Majesty's Government for compensation from the Prussian Government: but as I had not the good fortune to be a Don Pacifico, my case was con- sidered by the two lordly Secretaries, Palmerston and Stanley of Alderley, to be one the nature of which did not admit of her Majesty's Government inter- fering in any waydn my behalf. I have brought an action against Daniel Forrester, the London policeman ; but have been delayed in the proceedings until the end. of the vacation, when that affair will be decided before a Bri- tish jury. You mention an item in my schedule of" plunder in Germany, 14,000V t

if you refer to the schedule, you will find that it is " plunder in war, 14,0001."; and has reference to the years 1844, 1845, and 1846. You appear, however, to have allowed one item in my schedule to have escaped your no- tice, viz. my loss of 100,000/., through the unjust and uncalled-for inter- ference of the English and French Governments in the affairs of the River Plate in 1845, which was the cause of my being prevented returning to the army of Corrientes from Brazil. With regard to the latter portion of your paragraph, which you quote from the Tiines newspaper, in which you state that the "inexorable Law i

had no doubt that the nsolvent's description ought to have (wen sieorge Henry Harrison, and all the other titles should have been given as names which had been used—Now, Sir, all I can say to this is, that I am astonished at the "inexorable Law's" ignorance. In the case of Barlow v. Bateman, 3 P. Will. 66, Sir Joseph Jekyll, M. 11., says—" I am satisfied the usage of passing acts of Parliament for the taking upon one a surname is but we- stern, and that any person may take upon him what surname and as many

surnames as he pleases without an act of Parliament." And in the case of Doe v. Yates, 5, Barn. Aid. 544, Lord Tenterden says-" A name assumed by the voluntary act of a young man at his outset into life, adopted by all who know him, and by which he is constantly called, becomes, for all pur- poses that occur to my mind, as much and effectively his name as if he had obtained an act of Parliament." I assumed the extra names of De Strabolgie, Neville, and Plantagenet, because I am heir lineal of David de Strabolgie, thirteenth Earl of Athol, of Charles Neville sixth Earl of Westmoreland, and heir of the whole blood of King Henry Vi in right of my descent as heir lineal of Elizabeth Planta- genet, sister o the whole blood to King Henry IV, and daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his wife, Blanche, daughter and sole heiress of Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Lancaster ; in addition to my being the tenth in descent from Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, daugh- ter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, (brother to King Edward IV and Richard III,) and his wife Isabel, daughter and co-heiress of the great Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the King-maker. I assumed those names on the 10th of November 1843, being then twenty- six years of age, on the occasion of the opening of a new sphere of life ; and I have never since that period used or been known by any other names.

I request you will insert this letter in your next publication, in explana- tion of the paragraph to which it refers. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

G. H. DE S. N. PLANTAGENET HARRISON, Marshal-General. Queen's Prison, Saturday, 8th October 1852. Bin-In my letter to you of yesterday, I forgot to notice that part of your paragraph in which you say that I was arrested on my discharge from New- gate. I was never in that prison. The indictment for the assault was tried before the Court of Queen's Bench, and I was committed to the Queen's Prison.

Please to note this in a postscript to the other letter. Yours most obediently, G. H. DE S. N. PLANTAGENET HAEntsas.