been so intimately engaged with your Lordship in the former Administration; or perhaps by Mr. Dundas, who was indeed the person upon whom your Lordship had conferred the most specific obligations.[1] He appeared above all convinced, that the circumstances of the Royal interference must have been made known to you by direction, though he could not pretend to any more authority for this idea than his own supposition. I suffered him to go through with his observations, before I attempted any answer to particular parts of them. I told him when he had finished, that I really could not venture to speak decisively upon the matter of communication, but that I very much doubted, from my own judgment, of your having been so fully informed, as he imagined. I perfectly agreed with him, that it was natural to conclude, you would not only have been informed, but consulted on points of such very material importance, and I could not help adding, that however your Lordship might feel unconcerned at any omission of that sort, I was not myself proof against something more than surprise at such neglect, if I was to believe the fact to be so, which I was greatly inclined to do. As to Lord Mahon's correspondence I had heard of his sending you the Bills with the amendments; but knew nothing of any further intelligence, which he might have conveyed to you.—I observed to him that I had been much in the country of late, and was not early apprised of the last decisive measures taken by a certain quarter, and therefore had not been able to write to you about it myself, which indeed could after all have been from me only matter of private correspondence; that I did not know of any other channel by which so interesting a communication had been made to you; and I was afraid that perhaps it also had been omitted, because I was convinced that you
- ↑ By continuing him in office in March 1872 as Lord-Advocate, when Lord Rockingham became Prime Minister, and again in July of the same year after the death of Lord Rockingham.
