ankering for information as to the special views taken at the
time by a man who was, after all, a spectator at some distance. I
therefore give fair warning to historical inquirers that they will get
no help from me.

When the earlier letters were written the Afghan troubles had not become
acute. Fitzjames deals with a variety of matters, some of which, as he
of course recognises, lie beyond his special competence. He writes at
considerable length, for example, upon the depreciation of the rupee,
though he does not profess to be an economist. He gives his views as to
the right principles not only of civil, but of military organisation;
and discusses with great interest the introduction of natives into the
civil service. 'In the proper solution of that question,' he says, 'lies
the fate of the empire.' Our great danger is the introduction of a
'hidebound' and mechanical administrative system worked by third-rate
Europeans and denationalised natives. It is therefore eminently
desirable to find means of employing natives of a superior class, though
the precise means must be decided by men of greater special experience.
He writes much, again, upon the famine in Madras, in regard to which he
had many communications with his brother-in-law, Cunningham, then
Advocate-General of the Presidency. He was strongly impressed by the
vast importance of wise precautions against the future occurrence of
such calamities.

Naturally, however, he dilates most fully upon questions of
codification, and upon this head his letters tend to expand into small
state-papers. Soon after Lord Lytton's departure there was some talk of
Fitzjames's resuming his old place upon the retirement of Lord Hobhouse,
by whom he had been succeeded. It went so far that Maine asked him to
state his views for the information of Lord Salisbury. Fitzjames felt
all his old eagerness. 'The prospect,' he says, 'of helping you and
John Strachey to govern an empire,' and to carry out schemes which will
leave a permanent mark upon history, is 'all but irresistibly
attractive.' He knew, indeed, in his heart that it was impossible. He
could not again leave his family, the elder of whom were growing beyond
childhood, and accept a position which would leave him stranded after
another five years. He therefore returned a negative, though he tried
for a time to leave just a loophole for acceptance in case the terms of
the tenure could be altered. In fact, however, there could be n