been appointed his successor. "It is with some regret," said
Sir Francis, "that I have performed this duty, as it has been my
pleasure to have been in communication with you, and to feel that an
important command has been placed in the hands of an officer of your
lordship's high professional character and merits. You must permit me,
in making this announcement, to add my sincere thanks for the manner in
which you conducted the duties of your position, and particularly for
the valuable information you have communicated to the Board, and the
attention you have paid to the many points you had brought before you."

On the 14th of May Lord Dundonald left Halifax, and he reached
Portsmouth in the beginning of June. During the next few years his mind
was much occupied with the further consideration of various topics
suggested by his observations and explorations on the other side of the
Atlantic. It will be enough to make brief allusion to the most important
of these.

Subjects of hearty regret to him, repeatedly brought under his notice
during his three years' stay in the North American and West Indian
waters, were the great depression of the British fisheries in the
neighbourhood of Newfoundland, and the yet greater depression of trade
consequent on the remission of slavery in the more southern colonies.
For both he sought to provide a remedy. He urged, as has already been
shown in the extracts from his journal, which was published, and
attracted much attention, in the summer of 1852, that special help
should be given to these colonies, not only by the removal of all
restrictions upon their commerce and manufactures, but by protective
enactments in their favour.

His reasons for this view, as regards the Newfoundland fisheries, in
which he thought not alone of the interests of the colonists, were set
forth by him in a letter addressed to the "Times," in August, 1852.
"Were not the question of maintaining our nurseries for seamen," he
there said, "more important than commercial considerations, I should not
venture, through your favour, to trespass on public attention regarding
the North American fisheries; but, perceiving that impressions are
likely to be made by writers, avoiding responsibility for erroneous
opinions by withholding their names, I feel it a duty explicitly to
state that it is not to the amount of fish caught and cured, to the
price at which it can be sold at home or abroad, or to the number of
persons empl