fortnight after Firozsháh: 'I never can make any arrangement by which Sir Hugh Gough's supersession would lead to my appointment. The letters I annex will show the manner in which I am now compelled to interfere, and to take the whole of the military responsibility upon myself.' Four months afterwards (May 2nd), when the Letter of Service had reached him, he wrote again to the President of the Council in the same spirit: 'The other affair of appointing me a Lieutenant-General on the Staff is more embarrassing. But I have taken my line and done my best; and as the suspension of the order can do no harm, I hope equally to spare his [Gough's] feelings by preventing the publication of an arrangement made under very different circumstances from those in which we are now placed.'
