ch
you can now feel little interest amidst the important changes which
are now taking place in the institutions and relations of European
nations. With grateful recollections of kindness received, and great
respect,
I remain,
Your Lordship's obedient servant,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

To the Right Hon.
the Earl of Ellenborough.

P.S.--Since writing the above, I have received your Lordship's letter
of the 18th of January, and have been much gratified with the
favourable opinion you entertain of the commandant and officers. It
is the best assurance I could have of my boy being safe. Nothing
could be more auspicious than the opening of the lad's career, and I
trust he will profit by the advantage.

__________________________

Lucknow, 18th March, 1851.

My Dear Sir Erskine,

I have read over with much interest the two small works you have done
me the favour to send me, the one on Buddhism, and the other on Law
Reform; but I have not ventured upon the Seventh Report of the Board
of Education yet, because I have had a good deal to do and think
about; and a good deal of it is in small print, very trying for my
eyes, which are none of the strongest. I shall, however, soon read
it.

I concur in all your views about the necessity of throwing overboard
the whole system of special pleading, and have been amused with Sir
J. P. Grant's horror of your proposed innovations. It is not less
than that which he expressed at the little Macaulay Code, intended to
blow up the whole pyramid raised by "the wisdom of our ancestors," in
which so many illustrious characters he entombed. He was, indeed, as
you say, "a great _laudator temporis acti_;" but the number of those
like him at all times in England and its distant possessions is
fearful. One likes to look to America in this as in all things
tending to advancement; but there the "damned spot" stares us in the
face, blights our hopes, and crushes our sympathies--hideous slavery
--hideous alike in the recollection of the past, the contemplation of
the present, and the anticipation of the future. I wish two things--
1. That you would write a work on the subject less "sketchy and
perfunctory," as you call it, so that any one not versed in English
law and procedure might be able to understand it and appreciate it
thoroughly. 2nd. That you would, when relieved from your present