少
I
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may say that I do not attach too much importance to the expression of "satisfaction" in the Duke's letter, as I have learnt by bitter experience the true value of the Commander- in-Chief's "friendly spirit," as expressed in bis letter to mo of the 15th October, 1888.
I was so delighted at the favourable turn to the horrible paper warfare-into which I was driven by those who had tried to steal away my character and who had not served their country as I have done-which my appointment to be Colonel of a regiment seemed to portend, that, in the fulness of my heart, I wrote a cordial letter of thanks to His Royal Highness for the honour which had been done me.
But on reflection I soon saw that I had been much too sanguine. On reflection I saw more and more that the seeming gra- ciousness of the Commander-in-Chief was due to the fact that the Marquis of Salisbury had forwarded to him my letter of the 29th of last November; and that this appoint- ment had been given me in the hope that it might stay my hand. I realised the shameful manner in which I had been brought under the ban of compulsory retirement, how I had been tricked out of my share of the Jubilee honours. I thought of the broken promise of a K.C.B.ship, the Commander-in-Chief's long course of vacillation, and the insincerity of the "friendly spirit" in which he wrote to me his autograph letter of the 15th October, 1888, as shown in his subsequent letter of the 30th. The justness of my scepticism with regard to the Commander-in-Chief's sincerity is fully borne out by the list of Birthday Honours published in to-day's Times, where I am again passed over, while K.C.B.s are given to men who are a long way my juniors as C.B.s, and who have done nothing since they were made C.B.s; moreover, Sir John M'Leod is given a step in the Bath while I am completely ignored-Sir John M'Leod who, when I was commanding in China, and even during
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the most critical period Lieutenant-General Commanding, was only Major-General Commanding in Ceylon, and who, since holding this command, a far less important one than mins (he had only half as many troops under him), has done nothing.
When the elation, to which the hope of peace with honour had given birth, had passed away, and I again awoke to the shameful realities of the situation, I saw clearly that my only chance of a peaceful settlement was to let His Royal Highness plainly know my feelings on the subject, and to show him that, though at first carried away by hope, I was in no sense blind to the real significance of his conduct. It was with this object that I forwarded to His Royal Highness copies of my lotters to Lord Salisbury, especially as the Prime Minister seerned afraid to tell the Duke all that I had written about him, and would not say whether or no he had sent to His Royal Highness my letter to him of the 28th February, 1891, repeating in substance my letter to the Duke of the 28th February, 1888-a letter which His Royal Highness had ordered the Military Secre- tary to inform me was to be regarded as unofficial, so much did he fear its possible publicity.
It may be a very shocking thing for me thus rebelliously to decline the treatment which it pleases His Royal Highness to inete out to me; but, although fashionable society may think that the heavens would fall and crush the sacrilegious wretch who dared to tell a Royal Duke the truth about bis conduct, I, for one, hold a different opinion, and am not afraid to give it utterance. Moreover, I venture to think my fellow- that the common-sense view of the majority of countrymen will agree with me, and will see in my long
grievance against the authorities something more than a mere personal matter.
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