I may ask, Whether the order I suggested in my letter of the 5th of July justifies the assertion in the letter from the Madras Government, that I recommended "the restoration to the service and their appointments of all the officers the Government had removed." The terms of the order I suggested were only, that _in the full confidence_ that the officers of the coast would immediately abandon their proceedings, Government would _recommend_ the _officers suspended to the Court of Directors_. That it restored Colonels Bell and Chalmers to command, from which they had been removed, and also one or two staff officers who were in a similar predicament. There is assuredly a wide difference between the immediate restoration of all the officers suspended from the service, and the conditional promise of a favourable recommendation to that authority by which, under every circumstance, the fate of these officers must have been decided. With respect to Colonel Bell, I conscientiously believed at the moment, from what I knew of the case of that valuable officer, that Sir George Barlow would not be reluctant to consent to his restoration; and with regard to that of Colonel Chalmers and one or two others in nearly similar predicaments, I conceived that if any measure of this kind was adopted, it should be as complete as it was possible to make it, without affecting the principle which was to carry _conciliation in act_ (words, after what had passed, could be of little or no avail) as far as was possible, without serious injury to the authority and dignity of Government. It was this consideration which led to the communication already quoted from my letter of the 6th of July regarding the first Memorial forwarded by General McDowall. What I recommended was nothing more than what had, I believe, been done as an act of course, and was stated in a mode which, though conciliatory, reminded the army of their duty, and gave them no reason to believe more, than that the Court of Directors _would see_ the document in question. I think at this moment, as I did at that in which I recommended this measure, that nothing could have been more fortunate than its adoption. I know I differ on this point from very high authorities, who believe that any concessions, (and such they would appear to deem _every act_ of conciliation,) however modified and corrected, would have been ruinous to Government: but, in spite of these imposing opinions[59], I must ask reflecting men to look near the subject, to examine the evil which this measure could have produced, consider the ills that were at that moment to be expected, and to think on those that have resulted from the complete success to authority that the most sanguine could have anticipated, and then to pronounce their cool and deliberate judgment. There certainly could be no apprehension entertained that this order would have strengthened, to any purpose of immediate violence or