MR. MONTGOMERY MARTIN'S STATISTICS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
London, `25th September 1835.
SIR—On my return to town this morning, I received your journal of Sun. clay last ; it contains an attack on my History of the British colonies, which
is so much in unison with similar attacks on me which have appeared from the same individual in different journals, that I would not have noticed the malevo- lent insinuations which you have given currency to, were it not for the highly-
respectable character of your journal. The first alleged error betrays the igno- rance of your correspondent ; the number and qualifications of the Proprietors of East India Stock are daily changing ; and in both my first and second edi- tions, the lists were prepared for me at the East India House: as to the summing rip of the totals, your correspondent has uttered a wilful falsehood. I HAVE GIVEN NO TOTALS, because the shares of minors and others which would have made up the number of Stockholders were not noticed by me. Your corre- spondent's second alleged error betrays equal ignorance and calumny ; twenty- four is the number of acting Directors, and six Directors retire every year, in rotation. The third alleged error, if error it be, is not mine ; your correspon- dent admits it to be " a Parliamentary document." I will not, however, pro- ceed. I have stated sufficient to show the nature of the malignant attack made . either on me or for the purpose of injuring my publisher. A volume, or I should say five volumes, full of figures, might have a few errors; hut that much ha. not even been proved. If your correspondent be a gentle,man, I ask his name, and promise to afford any information he may wish if his object be truth : if he remain as an anonymous defamer, let him by this be bramled with the
character such conduct merits. Your obedient
R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN.
[It is Strange that Mr. MARTIN should think that the publication of such a letter as the foregoing could be of any service to him. It is very abusive, but contains no proof whatever that he was unfairly treated in the notice of his book in the last Spectator. The imputation of malig- nant motives to our correspondent is quite gratuitous, and beneath his and our notice. Mt. MARTIN has only succeeded in putting himself in a. passion; he has failed to show that his book does not contain the errors charged against it. A reference to the article in the last Spectator will prove this. In his book he stated the number of East India Stock Proprietors at 3579; and then added a classified table of them according to their votes, which table, when added up, gave only 2745 voters. Because our correspondent added up the column of Egures in order to prove that the number of Proprietors specified did not agree with the total named, he is charged with wilful falsehood ! The absurdity of this never was exceeded. Why did not Mr. MARTIN make his table correct, by giving the number of minors and others? As the lists were prepared for him at the India House, this might have been done. The daily changes, we presume, affect those whose votes are given quite as much as the minors. When a writer says a total is 3579, and then furnishes figures which, added up, make only 2745, he must expect to be charged with carelessness. The second mistake is of a similar description. Mr. Mamas: says the Directors are 2,4 in number, and then, without any explanation, gives the names of 30. This looks very like a blunder, and to say that it is a blunder is not to be guilty of a "calumny." Mr. MARTIN says that" 24 is the number of acting Directors, and that 6 retire every year, in rotation ; " and pray, are not 6 elected to take the places of those who retire ? Mr. MARTIN'S explanation is not a little obscure.
With respect to the Parliamentary Paper of blunders, the charge
against Mr. MARTIN was not for originating them, but for transferring such a tissue of evident misstatements into his book : its insertion in his pages was a proof of carelessness, which Mr. MARTIN has not even attempted to rebut.1
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