“Sir,—I am obliged to you for discrediting a silly paragraph from the ‘Sligo Observer,’ which is quoted in your paper to-day.
“It charges me with having abstracted the MS. of the
‘Exile of
Erin’ from the papers of the late duke (you call him marquis) of
Buckingham. If my character did not
repel this calumny, I could refute it by the fact that I never in my life had
access to any papers of either a Duke or Marquis of Buckingham. I wrote the
song of the ‘Exile of Erin’ at Altona,
and sent it off immediately from thence to London, where it was published by my
friend, Mr. Perry, in the ‘Morning Chronicle.’ With the
evidence of my being the author of this little piece I shall not trouble the
world at present. Only if my Irish accuser has any proof that George Nugent Reynolds, Esq., ever affected
| 164 | THOMAS CAMPBELL. |
“But the whole charge is so absurd, that I scarcely think the ‘Sligo Observer’ will renew it. If they do, they will only expose their folly
