Note 20 — Chapter XXVI

Part of a letter which Lord Dundonald received on this subject four years afterwards from Mr. Joseph Hume, though quoted in his "Autobiography," is too important to be here omitted. "I considered," wrote the great champion of public economy, on the 10th of May, 1852, "that you were incapable of taking the means that were resorted to by Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, and for which you suffered; and I was pleased to learn that you had been restored to your rank. I considered that act a proof that the Government which had restored you to the rank and honours of your profession, and had afterwards appointed you to the command in the West Indies, must have come to the same conclusion; and, until the perusal of your draft petition, I concluded that you had all your arrears paid to you as a tardy, though inadequate, return to your lordship, whose early exploits did honour to yourself, and gave additional lustre to the naval service of the country to which you belonged.... His Majesty King William IV. was satisfied with the innocence of Sir Robert Wilson, and he was restored to the service—was, I understand, paid all the arrears of pay and allowances during his suspension, and afterwards appointed to the command of Gibraltar. I was pleased at the result; and it would give me equal pleasure to learn that your application to her Majesty should be attended with an act of justice to you equally merited." Lord Palmerston subsequently, in answer to an application from Lord Dundonald—forgetting Sir Robert Wilson's case—said there was no precedent for such an act. Lord Dundonald answered that there was no precedent for such injustice as had been done to him.