April 10, 1827.

My dear Mr. Canning,--I have received your letter of
this evening, informing me that the king had desired
you to lay before his majesty a plan for the re-construction
of the administration; and that, in executing
these commands, it was your wish to adhere to the
principles on which Lord Liverpool's government had
so long acted together. I anxiously desire to be able
to serve his majesty, as I have done hitherto in his
cabinet, with the same colleagues. But before I can
give an answer to your obliging proposition, I should
wish to know who the person is you intend to propose
to his majesty as the head of the government?

Ever, my dear Mr. Canning, yours most sincerely,

WELLINGTON.

On the next day came the following from Mr. Canning:--

_To his Grace the Duke of Wellington._

Foreign Office, April 11, 1897.

My dear Duke of Wellington,--I believed it to be
so generally understood, that the king usually intrusts
the formation of an administration to the individual
whom it is his majesty's gracious intention to place at
the head of it; that it did not occur to me, when I
communicated to your Grace yesterday the commands
which I had just received from his majesty, to add, that,
in the present instance, his majesty does not intend to
depart from the usual course of proceeding on such
occasions. I am sorry to have delayed some hours this
answer to your Grace's letter; but from the nature of
the subject, I did not like to forward it without having
previously submitted it (together with your Grace's
letter) to his Majesty.

Ever, my dear Duke of Wellington, your Grace's
sincere and faithful servant,

GEORGE CANNING.

And finally, on the evening of the same day, the Duke wrote thus to Mr.
Canning.--

London, April 11, 1837.

My dear Mr. Canning,--I have received your letter
of this day, and I did not understand the one of yesterday
evening as you explained it to me. I understood
from yourself that you had in contemplation another
arrangement, and I do not believe that the practice to
which you refer has been so invariable as to enable me to affix a
meaning to your letter which its words did not, in my opinion, convey. I
trust that you will have experienced no inconvenience from the delay of
this answer, which I assure you has been occasioned by my desire to
di