though not loath to accept the one, wants the hostages as well--a security, as he imagines, for ever-increasing concessions. _May 2._ I just add a line to my letter of yesterday, as it is doubtful whether the opportunity for writing will not before many days have elapsed become exceedingly difficult, if not utterly impossible. The return of Mr. Flad, the disappointment of the King in not obtaining the requested accession to his white victims, and the consciousness that neither intrigue nor cunning will avail him to extort fresh concessions from the British Government, or the generosity of the British Christians, all, I believe, combine to bring before long our melancholy and doleful history to a crisis. Every day, nay, every hour, we expect to be transferred to the common prison, and to get hand-chains again. Only a week ago upwards of 200 prisoners, among whom are many persons of high rank, were ordered to be executed. This indiscriminate massacre, which has probably been prompted by the want of guards to protect them, indicates no improvement in the tyrant’s temper. We fear that wilful, wicked misrepresentations, and cruel, unpardonable selfishness united in concealing the true state of our position and the well-known designs of the King.... HENRY A. STERN. DISRAELI’S “MAUNDY THURSDAY” LETTER (1868). =Source.=--_The Times_, April 14, 1868. _The following letter, addressed to the Rev. Arthur Baker, was sent to the “Times” for publication_: HUGHENDEN MANOR, _Maundy Thursday, 1868_. REVEREND SIR, I have just received your letter, in which, as one of my constituents, you justify your right to ask for some explanation of my alleged assertion that the High Church Ritualists had been long in secret combination, and were now in open confederacy with Irish Romanists for the destruction of the union between Church and State.... You are under a misapprehension if you suppose that I intended to cast any slur upon the High Church party. I have the highest respect for the High Church party; I believe there is no body of men in this country to which we have been more indebted, from the days of Queen Anne to the days of Queen Victoria, for the maintenance of the orthodox faith, the rights of the Crown, and the liberties of the people. In saying this I have no wish to intimate that the obligations of the country to the other great party in the Church are not equally significant. I have never looked upon the existence of parties in the Church as a calamity; I look upon them as a necessity, and as a beneficent necessity. They are the natural and inevitable consequences of the mild and liberal principles of our ecclesiastical polity, and of the varying and opposite elements of the human mind and character.