(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale._) _October_ 25 [1868]. It may seem to you, with your great earnestness and singleness of mind, that we are doing very little, and yet in truth I already see great improvement, more particularly in our military cantonments, and doubtless we shall from year to year do better. But the extension of sanitation throughout the country and among the people must be a matter of time, especially if we wish to carry them with us ... (_November_ 23). I think that we have done all we can do at present in furtherance of sanitary improvement, and that the best plan is to leave the Local Governments to themselves to work out their own arrangements. If we take this course we shall keep them in good humour. If we try more we shall have trouble. I don't think we require a commission. Mr. John Strachey, a member of Council, has special charge of the Home Department under the Government of India, and all sanitary matters have been transferred to that department, so that when I am gone there will still be a friend at court to whom you can refer. [97] She had made use, after all, it will be observed, of Dr. Sutherland's visit to "Astley's" (above, p. 110). [98] The "little red book" was the reprint of Miss Nightingale's _Observations_; see above, p. 36. Miss Nightingale found cold comfort in this promised friend at court, for Sir John Lawrence forwarded at the same time a letter to himself from Mr. Strachey, in which the latter expressed himself in indignant terms about the India Office's memorandum. It was full, he complained, of things which they were said to have left undone, and gave them no credit for what they had done; and it advocated a forward policy in sanitation which might be attended by grave dangers in forcing sanitary reform upon unwilling people. "Well," said Miss Nightingale to Dr. Sutherland, "this is the nastiest pill we have had, but we have swallowed a good many and we're not poisoned yet." They replied to Mr. Strachey's criticisms in a final letter to the Governor-General. An "admirable" letter, Sir Bartle Frere thought it; "my letter to Sir J. L.," wrote Miss Nightingale in her diary, "to bless and to curse" (Dec. 4, 1868). I hope, and I expect, that the blessing was the larger half. For, in truth, she had obtained during Sir John Lawrence's term of office at least as much for her cause as could reasonably be expected.