your Report, for, after the assurances you have received from the Chancellor of the Exchequer you will by so doing at least secure your main object."
This was the general opinion of the Committee, and in deference to it we withdrew the latter portion of our Report. I do not think it would have been possible to have shown more moderation than we did, but had I known what was behind, I, for one, should not have been quite so simple or accommodating.
On the afternoon of the day on which our Report was adopted, I told a permanent official of one of our departments what we had done, and what was the result of the Committee. He burst out laughing and exclaimed, "Why, they will refer the recommendation of your Committee to a Royal Commission, to decide whether it is a breach of the Parliamentary Guarantee of 1858. All they wanted was to prevent your getting a recommendation from the Committee for the creation of an extra number of Major Generals." Of course I declined to believe such an assertion, but my informant was right, for after allowing the greater portion of the recess to pass away, Mr. Cardwell issued a Royal Commission to report on the legality of the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons. I believe it was not appointed till just before the Session of 1871, and as I did not succeed in getting their Report till June, one year after the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Com-
