execute as soon as I have completely
returned to my usual habits. These first days have been devoted to
putting everything into its regular order.

In France we are almost as much interested as you in England in the
affairs of India. Everyone, even in the country, asks me for news of what
is going on there.

There is a natural disposition to exaggerate the evil and to believe that
your dominion is overturned. For my part, I am waiting with the utmost
and most painful anxiety for the development of the drama, for no good
can possibly result from it; and there is not one civilised nation in the
world that ought to rejoice in seeing India escape from the hands of
Europeans in order to fall back into a state of anarchy and barbarism
worse than before its conquest.

I am quite sure that you will conquer. But it is a serious business.

A military insurrection is the worst of all insurrections, at least in
the beginning. You have to deal with barbarians, but they possess the
arms of civilised people given to them by yourselves.

My wife, who has preserved her English heart, is particularly affected by
the spectacle which Bengal at present affords.

If you have any more particular news than is to be found in the
newspapers, you will give us great pleasure by communicating them.

Remember me to Mrs. and Miss Senior, and to your daughter-in-law.

My wife sends many kind regards to them, as well as to you.

Adieu, dear Senior. Believe in my sincere affection.

A. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

P.S.--I fancy that the first effect of the Indian affair will be to draw
still closer the alliance between England and France.

Tocqueville, November 15, 1857.

I am somewhat angry with you, my dear Senior, for not having yet given us
your news.[1] It is treating our friendship unfairly, I have not written
to you because I doubted your following exactly your intended route, but
I will write to you at Athens, as I think that you must now be there. If
you have followed your itinerary your travels must have been most
interesting to you, and they will be equally curious to us. I conclude
that you only passed quickly through the Principalities in following the
course of the Danube. I, however, had depended on you for furnishing me
with clear ideas of a country which is at present so interesting to
Europe, and which I think is destined to play an important part in the
future. And what say you of our friends the Turks? Was it worth while to
spe