When Mr. Edmund Yates was resuming his seat, after having listened to the censure with which Lord Coleridge accompanied the sentence awarded him in a well-remembered action, I heard him murmur, I believe unconsciously, “That’s a snorter!” A similar view of this communication suggested itself to me. It was a lesson never to write an important letter at a distance from one’s diaries. While feeling sure of the ability to justify in effect the averment that I had carried despatches from Lord Chelmsford, there was a clear mistake in the statement that I had handed these to General Marshall. I had met him on my way to the telegraph-office, and had shown him the packet I carried; it was addressed to the telegraph-master, and to him I delivered it. My reply to the “snorter” was as follows:-- I would have accepted without troubling you further your disinclination to alter your previous adverse decision, but for one circumstance. Your letter conveys a grave charge against my personal veracity, a matter of infinitely greater importance to me than the receipt or non-receipt of a medal. Writing as I did from America without access to memoranda, I erred in naming General Marshall as the recipient of the official enclosure carried by me from Ulundi. I have the honour to enclose a detailed statement of the actual events which occurred in Lord Chelmsford’s headquarter, with the request that you submit the same to Lord Chelmsford and Colonel North Crealock, his lordship’s military secretary; satisfied as I am that the result of such submission will be to alter the terms of Lord Chelmsford’s report as conveyed in your letter. _Statement enclosed._