Mr. Meehan Blackwood's office, Melbourne 6 Decr. 1869 My dear Fox, I thought I should have been able to write you a long letter today, but Featherston having come in in the morning and been talking with Vogel and me up to now, there is no time to do more than send you one line by the Claud Hamilton. We are however to meet again tonight, and then I shall write you more fully; the Tararua sails on the 11th, five days hence, and I daresay you will get our letters by her nearly as soon as those by the Claud. The upshot of-our talk is this. Instead of Featherston being at all depressed about the last dispatch from Granville he at once said there was more reason than ever to go on with our work. He went of course to see Chute, and is