decided that come what may it will do nothing, I see as well as Featherston no ground to despair. It has-been a most fortunate thing that, as I have already written to you, Featherston and I have been absolutely united in our views of what we should do. Had there been any differences betweeen us, they would have come out very quickly before so practised a politician as Ld Granville, and, he must have gained an immediate ascendancy over us both. Happily our talk rolled on promiscuously, either Featherston or I taking up the thread as chance would have it, and with that confidence which depends on starting from the same platform. Lord Granville told us that one reason why the Ministers would be disposed to place reliance on what we said, and why we might rely on knowing all their minds frankly, was that we had been thoroughly looked up at the Colonial Office, and that we were both well known as friends of the natives; so that it was felt we would at any rate wish to deal generously by them. We were much at a disadvantage by the want, on the very first occasion after our leaving you, of a telegram from Galle. The Times and all the morning papers yesterday published their press telegrams from Ceylon of the arrival of the Malta there with the Australian January mail, and of news from New Zealand continuing of a more pacific character, and especially that the Kingites had joined our forces against Te Kooti. Lord Granvelle had no telegram from Sir George Bowen; and just when we might have been able to give the true interpretation to this news, we were under the immense disadvantage of the latest intelligence being of a kind to prove that no assistance by the Imperial Government was necessary or even advantageous. It is of no use my again pressing upon you the danger, which I so constantly represented to you before we left, of letting us be