—Please to read the enclosed, which explain themselves, and send me back Baring's letter.

Can you easily find out what has been done or is doing about the Abbey monument? I should like to know with whom it originated. My suspicion is, that some hangers-on of the big Whigs, who call themselves "Buller's friends," have set Lord Ashburton against the greater and colonial monument. At any rate, there must be a committee or set who have taken the active part about the stone: and I suppose that they may have communicated with you. Some of them, such as perhaps Thackeray and Monckton Milnes, would be dupes of the baser sort—such as Hawes and the new Secretary of Mauritius. It would be a great satisfaction to smother their petty memorial by the colonial one.

I enclose a list of the sort of people—perhaps the very people with some change— who could be induced to act as a committee, and put forth the call for a tribute to the memory of Buller that would be truly appropriate and worthy of England.

What say you? I should like to know as soon as you can spare time for a line.

P.S.—Godley is to send me his letter, to revise for the Chronicle. I will send you a copy up, in order that, if possible, it may appear in next Spectator. It will be Godley's introduction to the Southern world: and I am sure you will take the opportunity to make known who and what he is. It is odd that one so influential in our politics should be so page 167obscure, merely because he is not in Parliament. But so it is: and the object is to announce him truly to the colonies of the south.