before he went to Constantinople Lord Salisbury offered to make him our Minister at Pekin, and rumour has it that he recommended the new position to White on the ground that it was at Pekin that the battle between England and Russia would have to be fought out. But White's great ambition was to be her Majesty's Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and he declined the post at Pekin, where he might have been of even greater service to us than he was at Constantinople. On my return to England I wrote some account of my trip in the _Fortnightly Review,_ then under the editorship of Mr. John Morley. My journey had undoubtedly opened my eyes to the economic possibilities of Eastern Europe, and it had also proved to me that, at that time, at all events, England was well able to hold her own in the race for commercial supremacy even against Germany. Again and again, in visiting German workshops, I found that the practical direction of the establishment was in the hands of some Englishman or Scotsman, and the intensely practical character of the English workman, his readiness of resource, and his reliance upon himself in difficulties, were themes upon which my German friends were never tired of dilating. I am afraid that the case is somewhat different now, and that we are not so well able to compete, even on their own ground, with the artisans and business men of Germany as we were in 1878. CHAPTER XII. A CHAPTER OF MISFORTUNES. Death of my Sister's Husband and of my Brother James--An Accident on Marston Moor--Sir George Wombwell's Story of the Charge of the Light Brigade--His Adventure on the Ouse--Editing a Daily Newspaper from a Sick Bed--Reflections on Death--Death of my Mother--Serious Illness of my Only Daughter.