LIVERPOOL EARL OF: (1770-1828) British Prime Minister 1812-27. A very fine L.S., Liverpool, two pages, 4to, Fife ...

LIVERPOOL EARL OF: (1770-1828) British Prime Minister 1812-27. A very fine L.S., Liverpool, two pages, 4to, Fife House (Whitehall, London), 12th December 1822, to Lieutenant General Sir Hudson Lowe, marked 'Private'. Liverpool explains his delay in responding 'to the application made by the Duke of Wellington & yourself on the part of the two sisters of the late Sir W. H. De Lancey' as he had to make enquiries with both the Treasury and the War Office 'as to the possibility of conferring the extension of the Grant consistently with the Regulations in regard to such Pensions' and further writing 'I must confess that it will be a departure from the Rules by which we are at present governed, & it is only therefore upon the special grounds of the case, & the hope that it will not be quoted as a Precedent in any other Application for the same indulgence, that I can venture to recommend the extension of the Grant in question'. With blank integral leaf. A letter of interesting content and association. VG Hudson Lowe (1769-1844) Anglo-Irish Soldier and Colonial Administrator, Governor of St Helena where he was the 'gaoler' of Napoleon Bonaparte. William Howe De Lancey (1778-1815) English Colonel who served during the Napoleonic Wars and died of wounds he received at the Battle of Waterloo. De Lancey and the Duke of Wellington were close allies and on the return of Napoleon Bonaparte from Elba, De Lancey was appointed deputy quartermaster-general of the army in Belgium, replacing Sir Hudson Lowe, whom Wellington disliked. Wellington was engaged in conversation with De Lancey on the battlefield when the Colonel received the wounds which ultimately led to his death. The Duke of Wellington described the events to Samuel Rogers such - 'De Lancey was with me and speaking to me when he was struck. We were on a point of land that overlooked the plain. I had just been warned off by some soldiers (but as I saw well from it, and two divisions were engaging below, I said ''Never mind''), when a ball came bounding along en ricochet, as it is called, and, striking him on the back, sent him many yards over the head of his horse. He fell on his face, and bounded upwards and fell again. All the staff dismounted and ran to him, and when I came up he said, ''Pray tell them to leave me and let me die in peace.'' I had him conveyed to the rear, and two days after, on my return from Brussels, I saw him in a barn, and he spoke with such strength that I said (for I had reported him killed), ''Why! De Lancey, you will have the advantage of Sir Condy in 'Castle Rackrent'--you will know what your friends said of you after you were dead.'' ''I hope I shall,'' he replied. Poor fellow! We knew each other ever since we were boys. But I had no time to be sorry. I went on with the army, and never saw him again' (from The Recollections of Samuel Rogers, 1856) One of De Lancey's two sisters, Susan, referenced in the present letter married Sir Hudson Lowe in December 1815.