In order to set in motion the machinery of a sanitary department for all India, a despatch had to be written, pointing out clearly and concisely what was to be done. Frere consulted Miss Nightingale at every point about this despatch, but spoke of the necessity for some sort of peg to hang it on—“not,” he said, “that the Secretary of State is at all lukewarm, nor, I think, that he has any doubt as to what should be said, or how—that, I think, your memoranda have fixed; the only difficulty is as to the when.... “No governor-general, I believe, since the time of Clive has had such powers and such opportunities, but he fancies the want of progress is owing to some opposing power which does not exist anywhere but in his own imagination. “He cannot see that perpetual inspection by the admiral of the drill and kit of every sailor is not the way to make the fleet efficient, and he gets disheartened and depressed because he finds that months and years of this squirrel-like activity lead to no real progress.” The despatch with its accompanying documents went to Miss Nightingale for her remarks before it was sent out. Her commentary was as follows:— “I find nothing to add or to take away in the memorandum (sanitary). It appears to me quite perfect in itself—that is, it is quite as much as the enemy will bear, meaning by the enemy—not at all the Government of India in India, still less the Government of India at home, but—that careless and ignorant person called the Devil, who is always walking about taking knowledge out of people’s heads, who said that he was coming to give us the knowledge of good and evil, and who has done just the contrary. “It is a noble paper, an admirable paper—and what a present to make to a government! You have included in it all the great principles—sanitary and administrative—which the country requires. And now you must work, work these points until they are embodied in local works in India. This will not be in our time, for it takes more than a few years to fill a continent with civilization. But I never despair that in God’s good time every man of us will reap the common benefit of obeying all the laws which He has given us for our well-being. “I shall give myself the pleasure of writing to you again about these papers. But I write this note merely to say that I don’t think this memorandum requires any addition. “God bless you for it! I think it is a great work.”[25] It _was_ a great work, and it might have been delayed for scores of years, with a yearly unnecessary waste of thousands of lives, if she had not initiated it. [Illustration: Florence Nightingale in her Last Days. (_From a drawing from memory. Copyright A. Rischgitz._)]