Page:Memorandum (Rear-Admiral Sir John C. Dalrymple Hay, 1912).djvu/24

( 20 ) of my brother officers as well as myself of the power of serving the country.

We are together opposing the adoption of this new regulation, which we believe to be impolitic and unjust. Until, therefore, the question is settled for or against us, I cannot willingly do that which would seem to prejudice the case against all those who are similarly affected. I am compelled, therefore, to decline the appointment.

You say in your letter "that you did not say that you had, a year ago, offered me employment, and that I told Captain Beauchamp Seymour that I did not wish to go to sea."

I think there is some mistake in this matter. I never received from you, or from any one in your name, an offer of an appointment at any time until Saturday last. The only circumstance, so far as I can recollect, that by any possibility could have led to such a misapprehension, was on one occasion, soon after the present Government took of&ce, I happened to be staying at the same country house with Beauchamp Seymour, who spoke to me on the subject of employment—he making to me (as I took it, almost en badinage) an offer to place my name before you for consideration, in case I desired employment. I believe I replied that, in peace, I preferred the constituency which I have the honour to represent to any other employment.

I hardly think that an offer so made was one to be used in debate, or anywhere else, as an official statement that I did not wish to go to sea. I have now, I think, replied to all the points in your note.

I may add that I should hardly think it fair to desert the friends with whom I usually act in political life and in the House of Commons, where my services, however slight, may be useful at a period of unexampled change in the Navy and its Ordnance; as well as upon the Abyssinian Committee, which I am naturally expected to attend to, in consequence of my official duty during the continuance of that war. I am, yours very faithfully,

J. C. D. HAY.