the necessity of calling upon a part of this county to put itself in a
state of military preparation, that it has not been in my power to send
a more immediate answer to your letter of the sixteenth. As the part
above alluded to does not extend to your residence, I conceive you will
not be called upon to make any movement, except in the event of actual
invasion, or of immediate threatening upon the coast; in which case the
_offers_ you make would be of _infinite service_; in which case also, as
you ask my opinion, I think various lines of service might be pointed
out, in which your _personal services_, attended by your servants, would
be of much greater avail, and far more beneficial to the country, than
as a volunteer in any regular regiment of cavalry, should those corps be
permitted to receive volunteers.

"I am, Sir,
"Your very obedient servant,
"PEMBROKE.
"To Henry Hunt, Esq.
"Chisenbury House, Wilts."

Now let the thinking reader look at this circumstance attentively, and
having done so, and marked down the dates, what a field for reflection
does this fact, this letter disclose!--It appears, by the date of this
letter and its contents, that, on the SIXTEENTH OF AUGUST, _in the year
1801, I was acting as CHAIRMAN of a public parish meeting_, held at the
Swan Inn, in the parish of Enford, in the county of Wilts, assembled in
consequence of a circular letter, written by Earl Pembroke, the Lord
Lieutenant of the county, in order to take into consideration and
to adopt the most effectual means of affording assistance to the
government, to resist and repel the invasion of a _foreign foe_.
The very FIRST time in my life that I was ever called upon by my