Henry Crabb Robinson, Rydal, Ambleside, to Lord [Henry] Brougham, [no address], 1 January 1842. 

      Rydal, Ambleside,

1st January 1842

My dear Lord

       You take so strong an interest in the Scotch Ante [Nobis?] question that I do not fear that you will deem this letter obtrusive

       I have been shewn a slip from a Scotch newspaper containing the report of a decision on the 6th of March 1840 in a cause entitle Kerr v. Martin so astonishing and entirely at variance from your argument in favour of the appellants in Burtwhistle v. Vardill, that I cannot resist the inclination of pointing it out to you, in the bare possibility that it may be unknown to you

       According to this report: The father & mother of illegitimate children separated; The mother married and had children. Her husband died. She then intermarried with the father of her illegitimate children And the court held those children to be legitimated notwithstanding such intermediate marriage!!!

       This seems incredible. Yet the report recognizes the obvious objection. It was the mother, not the father who had married a third party. And therefore as there were no children born after the formal marriage no question arose as to the relative rights of the ante & post nati as has arisen in the courts on the Continent; but it is said that some only of the majority who decided for the legitimation [sic] intimated that the issue of an intermediate marriage could not be divested by legitimated children –

      Considering your Lordship as almost pledged to bring this important matter before the legislature I will not apologise for directing your attention to this new element of disorder; For if this become law in Scotland, it surely renders confusion worse confounded & makes the interposition of the legislature more imperiously necessary: an interposition which no one but yourself could introduce with any reasonable hope of success.

  I am

  My Lord

  obediently your’s

  H. C. Robinson

No address. 

No postmark. 

Endorsed: 1842 / Mr H. C. Robinson 

Text: Brougham Papers, MS. 30.308, University College University of London.