The fleet left Singapore for Macao on the 30th May; the fear of bad weather prevented their waiting any longer for Admiral Elliot. William Osborne and Lord Jocelyn seemed very well satisfied with their accommodation in the _Conway_, and were gone on in her. William asked some of the Chinese at Singapore whether their way of making war was like ours, and they said, “Much the same, only more guns and less drum.” He asked what they thought of the steamers, which were, in fact, quite new to them, and they said, “Oh, plenty at Pekin; only little smaller.” I am in a horrid mood of mind at all these requisitions from home that are to keep us here another year; and have turned rank Tory on the spot, and can think of nothing but the quickest means of turning the Ministry out, and then of rushing down to the river-side and beckoning to the first ship. But surely we never shall be kept here. I don’t think the people at home have an idea what a place it is, but they _will_ know hereafter, if they go on behaving so in this life. And as for the idea that any Governor-General is to stay till everything is quite quiet and peaceable in this great continent, you might as well ask the fish to stay in the frying-pan till they have put out the fire. There always must be some great piece of work in hand here. In the meantime, life is passing and friends are dying, and we are becoming so old that it will be impossible to take up the thread of existence again with the young things like the Drummonds, etc., whom I had looked upon as the supports of my old age. It will never do to stay. We are to have at dinner to-day a son of Theodore Hook’s, just arrived. He does not look as if he could improvise, or do much better if he _provised_; but I never saw the father, so he may look stupid, too, without being so. I see there are two of T. Hook’s novels published lately, and trust the son may have partially brought them out.[485] I have become a great whist player upon the one-eyed monarch principle. Nobody else can play at all, and when the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief dine together, it is obvious that they must have their rubber, and so I and the Aide-de-Camp or the Doctor play with them. Can’t you see the sort of thing? Shocking whist, but it helps the evening through. I play much better than Sir Jasper,[486] but worse, George says, than anybody else he ever saw. Ever yours, E. EDEN. _Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._ CALCUTTA, _July 17, 1840_. MY DEAREST PAM, Your friend Mr. Taylor arrived this week with the letter you gave him ten months ago--perhaps not bad travelling for a letter of introduction, though not exactly rapid as a means of receiving intelligence. However, a letter’s a letter, and I am the last person in the world to complain.