In the next year or two the first excitement about the co-operative movement cooled down. Parson Lot's pen was less needed, and he turned to other work in his own name. Of the richness and variety of that work this is not the place to speak, but it all bore on the great social problems which had occupied him in the earlier years. The Crimean war weighed on him like a nightmare, and modified some of his political opinions. On the resignation of Lord Aberdeen's Government on the motion for inquiry into the conduct of the war, he writes, February 5, 1855, "It is a very bad job, and a very bad time, be sure, and with a laughing House of Commons we shall go to Gehenna, even if we are not there already--But one comfort is, that even Gehenna can burn nothing but the chaff and carcases, so we shall be none the poorer in reality. So as the frost has broken gloriously, I wish you would get me a couple of dozen of good flies, viz., cock a bondhues, red palmers with plenty of gold twist; winged duns, with bodies of hare's ear and yellow mohair mixed well; hackle duns with grey bodies, and a wee silver, these last tied as palmers, and the silver ribbed all the way down. If you could send them in a week I shall be very glad, as fishing begins early." In the midst of the war he was present one day at a council meeting, after which the manager of one of the associations referring to threatened bread riots at Manchester, asked Kingsley's opinion as to what should be done. "There never were but two ways," he said, "since the beginning of the world of dealing with a corn famine. One is to let the merchants buy it up and hold it as long as they can, as we do. And this answers the purpose best in the long run, for they will be selling corn six months hence when we shall want it more than we do now, and makes us provident against our wills. The other is Joseph's plan." Here the manager broke in, "Why didn't our Government step in then, and buy largely, and store in public granaries?" "Yes," said Kingsley, "and why ain't you and I flying about with wings and dewdrops hanging to our tails. Joseph's plan won't do for us. What minister would we trust with money enough to buy corn for the people, or power to buy where he chose." And he went on to give his questioner a lecture in political economy, which the most orthodox opponent of the popular notions about Socialism would have applauded to the echo. By the end of the year he had nearly finished "Westward Ho!"--the most popular of his novels, which the war had literally wrung out of him. He writes-- ? "_December 18, 1855_. "I am getting more of a Government man every day. I don't see how they could have done better in any matter, because I don't see but that _I_ should have done a thousand times worse in their place, and that is the only fair standard.