ou would make me
most desirous to effect it so far as the claims of others would
permit. To be perfectly frank and unreserved, I should tell you,
that there are many reasons which would have made me wish to send
you to Ireland; but upon the whole I think that had better not be
done. Some considerations connected with the presbyterians of
Ireland make me prefer on the whole that we should adopt a
different plan.[147] Then, if I had had the exchequer, I should
have asked you to be financial secretary to the treasury; but under
the circumstances I have mentioned, that would be an office of
secondary importance and I am sure you will not estimate that I now
propose to you by the mere name which it bears.' He also made an
allusion to the admiralty of which I do not retain the exact form.
But I rather interposed and said, 'My objection on the score of
fitness would certainly apply with even increased force to anything
connected with the military and naval services of the country, for
of them I know nothing. Nor have I any other object in view; there
is no office to which I could designate myself. I think it my duty
to act upon your judgment as to my qualifications. If it be your
deliberate wish to make me vice-president of the board of trade, I
will not decline it; I will endeavour to put myself into harness,
and to prepare myself for the place in the best manner I can; but
it really is an apprenticeship.' He said, 'I hope you will be
content to act upon the sense which others entertain of your
suitableness for this office in particular, and I think it will be
a good arrangement both with a view to the present conduct of
business and to the brilliant destinies which I trust are in store
for you.' I answered, that I was deeply grateful for his many acts
of confidence and kindness; and that I would at once assent to the
plan he had proposed, only begging him to observe that I had
mentioned my unfitness under a very strong sense of duty and of the
facts, and not by any means as a mere matter of ceremony. I then
added that I thought I should but ill respond to his confidence if
I did not mention to him a subject connected with his policy which
might raise a difficulty in my mind. 'I cannot,' I said,
'reconcile it to my sense of right to exact from China, as a