anged that view in later years. I, at any rate, do not
feel that my partiality, whatever it may be, is a disqualification for
attempting a portrait. And, though the public may have no right to
further knowledge, I think that such part of the public as reads these
pages may be the better for knowing something more of a man of whom even
a son may say that he was one of the conspicuously good and able men of
his generation.

The task, however, is no easy one. His character, in the first place, is
not one to be defined by a single epithet. 'Surely,' said his friend Sir
Henry Taylor to him upon some occasion, 'the simple thing to do is so
and so.' He answered doubtfully, adding, 'The truth is I am _not_ a
simple man.' 'No,' said Taylor, 'you are the most composite man that I
have met with in all my experience of human nature.'[31] Taylor entered
the Colonial Office in the beginning of 1824, and soon formed an
intimate and lifelong friendship with his colleague. His autobiography
contains some very vivid records of the impression made by my father's
character upon a very fine observer in possession of ample opportunities
for knowledge. It does something, though less than I could wish, to
diminish another difficulty which encounters me. My father's official
position necessarily throws an impenetrable veil over the work to which
his main energies were devoted. His chief writings were voluminous and
of great practical importance: but they repose in the archives of the
Colonial Office; and even such despatches of his as have seen the light
are signed by other names, and do not necessarily represent his
opinions. 'The understanding,' says my brother in the 'Life,' 'upon
which permanent offices in the civil service of the Crown are held is
that those who accept them shall give up all claim to personal
reputation on the one hand and be shielded from personal responsibility
on the other.' Of this compact, as Fitzjames adds, neither my father nor
his family could complain. His superiors might sometimes gain credit or
incur blame which was primarily due to the adoption of his principles.
He was sometimes attacked, on the other hand, for measures attributed to
his influence, but against which he had really protested, although he
was precluded from any defence of his conduct. To write the true history
of our colonial policy in his time would be as much beyond my powers as
it is outside my purpose; to discriminate his share in it would pro