Autograph Letter Signed ('FitzRoy Kelly') from Sir FitzRoy Edward Kelly to J. T. Barry, declining to join his 'excellent association' [the Metropolitan Association?] on the grounds that it is incompatible with 'the office which I now hold'.

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Fair, on lightly-aged paper. It is not 'from inattention or indifference' that Kelly has left Barry's letter unanswered. 'I think it would be inconsistent with my duty in the office which I now hold to become a member of your very excellent association'. (Possibly a reference to the Association for Promoting the Relief of Destitution in the Metropolis, to which Barry was a subscriber in 1845.) Kelly would however like Barry to convey 'to the gentlemen composing it [...] the deep interest I shall ever feel in the important question to which their deliberations & exertions are directed.'