"You will easily have seen the kind of youth he is. A sort of mania had seized upon him to go to the diggings. Somebody whom he knew of had made a fortune there; and he was quite sure he also would make his fortune. He would have run away, if I had not given him leave to go, and furnished him with the means. I also, of course, gave him enough money to support him for months, and I provided that he should be able to return.
"He has just returned, and I must say he has been wonderfully little injured, if he has not been much benefited by his sojourn to Melbourne. He is the same kind-hearted, gentle, and courteous fellow that he always was; I cannot help hoping that he has gained a great deal of experience. "Of you he speaks with much gratitude, as you may imagine, and in this feeling his father fully sympathises with him, and begs to remain, yours very faithfully,
"Arthur Helps."
The colony of New South Wales at this time sent home Henry Parkes and William Bede Dalley, as Immigration Agents in the United Kingdom, and it was pleasant to be told that I had been ot some service to them. Parkes wrote:—
"Ashley Place, Bristol Road, Birmingham,
"January 17, 1862.
"I owe you much for introducing me to Cobden, Carlyle, and Mill. I visited Cobden at his house at Midhurst, and we sat up half the night talking of the future of England and Australia. No man in England has made so deep an impression on me. His genial nature, his frank and vivid intellect, and his noble simplicity of life won me completely. I really long to see him again.
"Cobden has a very kindly remembrance of you, and asked after you with more than common interest. I explained to him as clearly as I could the state of things in the colonies, and I think I gave him a better notion than he had before of the working of our institutions. He was much shocked at the Heales Protectionist programme.
"I don't think I understand Carlyle. I have seen him
