Mr. Hammond was, I suppose, at that time a man of between fifty and sixty years of age—an imposing figure, big and burly, with rather a quick, jerky, incisive manner, which was apt to make men shy until they got to know him well, when the goodness and sweetness of his nature seldom failed to inspire affection. He was one of the best public servants that I ever came across. He was an indefatigable worker, and indeed his chief fault was that he took too much upon his own shoulders; at the same time he was more than generous in meting out praise to others. There are not many men left who served under him; the few that are yet alive must, like myself, have been pained by the way in which he has been alluded to in certain recent biographical works. Private letters, which were meant only for the eyes of those to whom they were addressed, and were certainly never intended to be published, should be carefully edited before they are put into print, otherwise words set down purely in jest, and inspired by the humour of the moment, wear a serious look which is all the more mischievous when the writer is a great personage. Again, Mr. Hammond has been blamed because of his famous declaration to Lord Granville as to the peaceful outlook in June, 1870. Was he to blame for this false view of the state of Europe? His opinion was based upon the despatches and—what is still more important—upon the private and confidential letters received from Her Majesty’s Ambassadors at Paris and Berlin, and from those who in similar positions were watching the course of affairs in other capitals. It was the various _chancelleries_, and not Lord Hammond, which were responsible for his statement; and the wrong forecast only shows that the blow fell suddenly and unsuspectedly, with the swiftness of a meteorite. Until the “editing” of the famous Ems telegram, to which I shall allude elsewhere, took place, Bismarck himself did not know how soon the gates of the temple of Janus were to be thrown open. The secret was well kept because it did not exist. War was the birth of a moment. There had been no hidden warlike preparations either in France or in Germany; indeed, so little was this the case that Bismarck tells us that it was not until he had consulted Moltke as to the relative states of the French and German armies, and which of the two would be likely to gain an advantage from an immediate declaration of war, that he lighted the torch. (“Gedanken und Erinnerungen,” Vol. II., 99-113.) So much for the ungenerous blame which has been cast upon Mr. Hammond for his want of political foresight—an altogether unjust accusation, founded upon ignorance of the condition of affairs at the time.