were our own enemies when we refused his offer. But he is so convinced of the injustice of leaving us to get out of the scrape for which the Imperial authorities is jointly answerable; that he means to raise the question in the Lords immediately. We as Commissioners shall be, in a few days, on the verge of the ditch we foresaw. No one dreams of any party action being possible, and Carnarvon will most carefully guard against its being supposed to guide him: but we shall have to choose between telling him to hold his hand, or going into it cordially with him. He had a private conference with Lord Granville two nights ago in the hope that remembrances from a former Colonial Minister made as a private friend, would have some effect: but without avail. Our course ahead is full of troubled waters on every side, and I hope we steer through them with discretion: but I confess I dont see my way. It is useless, absolutely useless, to try and turn Lowe: but we mean to go to Gl adstone, not thinking the Colony would be satisfied with us unless we went to the Premier before giving up the game; and so next mail we shall very likely have more interesting news to give you than any that goes now. But we have really been at one great disadvantage which we ought not to have been at - I mean, a total lack of information. Every one had been feeling perfectly sure we should get ample details of what was going on: you may judge of what fools we looked when the mail came in with only a scrap or two of letters and not a single newspaper. We could give no one word of information, and they had to go elsewhere for it. We were with Granville the day the mail came in, and he seemed surprised to have to give us the only news there was. There had been such expectations raised I think, about these "Commissioners", that when we were