I believe that the sentiments expressed in the newspaper extract of which you acknowledge the receipt in your last, with respect to the merits of the policy of forbearance adopted by me at the great crisis, are beginning to obtain very generally among the few who trace results to their causes. But none can know what that crisis was, and what that decision cost. At the time I took it, I stood literally _alone_. I alienated from me the adherents of the Government, who felt, or imagined (having been generally, in times past, on the anti-Government side), that if the tables had been turned--if _they_ and not _their adversaries_ had been resisting the law of the land, and threatening the life of the Queen's representative--a very different course of repressive policy would have been adopted. At the same time I gained nothing on the other side, who only advanced in audacity; and added the charge of personal cowardice to their other outrages. At home, too, I forfeited much moral support; for although the Government sustained me with that honourable confidence which entitles a Government to be well served, they were puzzled. The logic of the case was against me. Lord Grey and Lord J. Russell both felt that either I was right or I was wrong. If the latter, I ought to be recalled; if the former, I ought to make the law respected. And, lastly, I lost any chance of moral support from the opinion of our neighbours in the States; for, like all primitive constitutionalists, the ideas of government they hold in that quarter are very simple. I have been told by Americans, 'We thought you were quite right; but we could not understand why you did not _shoot them down!_'