Two autograph letters signed from John W. Ward to Francis Horner, Falmouth and Paris, 8 August 1809 and 30 March 1816.

1. Letter dated 8 August 1809, with commentaries on the Peninsular War and the War of the Fifth Coalition: “From a note (enclosing a little pamphlet about the Junta) which I received from you at Gibraltar, I conclude you was so good as to write to me at least twice if not oftener during my absence. owing however to the stupidity of that excellent patriot Don Diego Duff our consul at Cadiz not another line reached me. He is a personage very bit Nestor almost as old, and if possible, still more foolish. By his order a whole packet containing every thing that had been directed to me to Cadiz was sent to Malaga where [...] Lady Westmorland was so good as to take charge of it, and will probably bring it with her to England. I must therefore thank you and my other correspondents for what I suppose they did, a species of conjectural gratitude which I do not recollect to have seen noticed by any writer upon morals. I can assure you that I very confidently assign a large share of it to you without afterwards fear of discerning that you do not merit it. [...] The disastrous news from Austria met me upon landing. I always desponded, but the success at Ebersdorf encouraged one to hope that resistance might be protracted till another campaign, and was that, but the event have been what it might, would have been of great importance to the common cause. – Spain will now prove an easy conquest – but I hope to meet you soon and talk over this and other subjects [...]”. Ward refers to the Battle of Aspern-Essling (May 1809), an Austrian victory in the War of the Fifth Coalition, and to the Battle of Wagram (July 1806), a decisive French victory which marked the end of the Fifth Coalition, the Austrian and British-led alliance against Napoleon.

2. Letter dated 30 March 1816 referring to a newly published book and commenting on a successfull motion in the House of Commons: “It occurs to me that you may like to see de Pradt’s Book about Spain which has just appeared – it is reported that the Police mean to prohibit the sale of it and in that case it may be difficult hereafter to procure it [...] I only got it yesterday and have not read a word of it, so I can say nothing about its merits – De Pradts has read it here in several companies, and it has excited some attention. – So you have played the very dance with his Majesty’s Ministers – The effects which the victory your friends have gained has produced here is prodigious – People thought that the old English Constitution was dead & gone & are quite astonished to find it all alive & kicking – and in that point of vain no doubt the event is satisfactory – though I confess I should voted [!] with the majority [...]”. The book to which Ward refers is Dominique Dufour de Pradt’s Mémoires historiques sur la révolution d’Espagne, Paris 1816.