The purport of this letter from the Lords of the Treasury was to concur in a recommendation of the Commissioners of Woods, made in a Report to their Lordships on the subject of my remuneration in February, 1838, and to convey to those Commissioners the official sanction of the Government for acting upon it. The recommendation was to the effect that the sum of 25,000_l._ would be a fair and reasonable remuneration for the labour and responsibility to be imposed upon me in the superintendence, direction and completion of the intended edifice; and the Commissioners of Woods stated that they were of that opinion, after having given their best consideration to “all the circumstances of the case, the extent and importance of the buildings, the nature and description of the several works, the very large expenditure contemplated in my estimate, and the period within which it was proposed that such expenditure should be incurred.” After having made a fruitless application for the particulars of the grounds upon which such recommendation was made, I was induced, for the reasons before stated, to accede conditionally to the proposition founded upon it, under a protest, however, as to the inadequacy of the amount proposed, and with an intimation that I should offer proof of its inadequacy, when the building was in such an advanced state as to allow of a competent judgment being formed on the subject, which protest, as well as the reiteration of it on various subsequent occasions, has never been contested. It will be seen that the proposition had special reference to the plans and estimates then delivered and approved, and that the conditions of it were based upon those documents. I could easily prove, if it were necessary, that those conditions have been annulled by acts of the Government, and by circumstances over which I had no control; but, assuming for the present that they have been strictly adhered to, I am anxious to show, not only that the grounds which have been alleged for reducing the amount of the architect’s customary remuneration in this case, are erroneous, but that I have been called upon, in carrying into effect the design adopted, to do much more than is usual, or than could have been anticipated in the ordinary discharge of my professional duties. In the first place the Commissioners of Woods state that they have given their best consideration to “all the circumstances of the case.” With all due respect for the nobleman and gentlemen who filled the office of Commissioners of Woods at that time, I must contend, that, from the want of professional knowledge and experience, they were incompetent of themselves to form any just opinion on the subject, and they did not, to my knowledge, take the opinion of any one really competent to advise them thereon.