e law it might be
desirable to leave unaltered; and then to fuse the whole into unity.
Fitzjames proposes to repeal forty-three Acts with the exception of
certain sections, and to substitute for the repealed portions a single
Act of 168 sections, shorter, as he remarks, than some of those
repealed. The result would be to save a great deal of labour to
hard-worked Indian officials, who required to know the precise limits
of their authority; and the Act would form a complete constitutional
code, determining the powers and the mutual relations of the whole
Indian administrative and legislative system.

The draft was carefully criticised by the authorities. Fitzjames himself
went through it again in the following January with Maine and Sir
Erskine Perry, and it was finally made ready to be laid before
Parliament. Lord Salisbury introduced in the following session a
preparatory measure which would be incidentally required. This, however,
was withdrawn in consequence, it seems, of objections made by the
Legislative Council in India, and the whole code went to the usual
limbo. I do not know what was the precise nature of the objection, but
probably it was thought that the new law might stir up questions which
it was better to leave in repose. Anyhow, nothing came of it. 'You have
done your work and got your fee, and what more do you want?' observed a
cynical friend. To which Fitzjames could only reply, ruefully enough,
'True, O King.'

This task interrupted another upon which he had been engaged, and which
he took up again as soon as it was finished. He writes upon July 3,
1874, that his prospects have improved, and that he has therefore
'turned his mind to his books in real earnest.' They are a 'large
family' and rather crowd upon him. However, his first enterprise will be
'a codification of the English law of contracts, founded upon the Indian
Act, but larger and more elaborate in every way.' If the country takes
to codifying (the dream had not yet vanished), this might become his
profession. Anyhow, he will be able to give his mind to what he really
cares for. He had been already hard at work upon his 'Contract Book' in
the winter before he was instructed to prepare the Acts for the
Government of India. This task, I may observe, had led him to study some
of the German jurists. He had perfected his German with the help of a
master in the summer of his return, and was now able to read the
language comfortably. He expresses