o send Walpole to Guatemala, and order him to his
post at once. G. will have told you that I shall not go back to Ireland.
The blunder of my ever seeing it was the blackest in the life of yours,
DANESBUBY.'

The first letter his lordship opened gave him very little time or
inclination to bestow more thought on Atlee. It was from the head of the
Cabinet, and in the coldest tone imaginable. The writer directed his
attention to what had occurred in the House the night before, and how
impossible it was for any Government to depend on colleagues whose
administration had been so palpably blundering and unwise. 'Conciliation
can only succeed by the good faith it inspires. Once that it leaks out
you are more eager to achieve a gain than confer a benefit, you cease to
conciliate, and you only cajole. Now your lordship might have apprehended
that, in this especial game, the Popish priest is your master and mine--not
to add that he gives an undivided attention to a subject which we have to
treat as one amongst many, and with the relations and bearings which attach
it to other questions of state.

'That you cannot, with advantage to the Crown, or, indeed, to your own
dignity, continue to hold your present office, is clear enough; and the
only question now is in what way, consistent with the safety of the
Administration, and respect for your lordship's high character, the
relinquishment had best be made. The debate has been, on Gregory's motion,
adjourned. It will be continued on Tuesday, and my colleagues opine that if
your resignation was in their hands before that day, certain leaders of the
Opposition would consent to withdraw their motion. I am not wholly
agreed with the other members of the Cabinet on this point; but, without
embarrassing you by the reasons which sway my judgment, I will simply place
the matter before you for your own consideration, perfectly assured, as I
am, that your decision will be come to only on consideration of what you
deem best for the interests of the country.

'My colleague at the Foreign Office will write to-day or to-morrow with
reference to your former post, and I only allude to it now to say the
unmixed satisfaction it would give the Cabinet to find that the greatest
interests of Eastern Europe were once more in the keeping of the ablest
diplomatist of the age, and one of the most far-sighted of modern
statesmen.

'A motion for the abolition of the Irish viceroyalty is now on the notice
pap