Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 edition. Excerpt: ... your acquaintance. Ask him to call on me tomorrow.' A day or two after, J heard from his lordship that he had sent him up to the proper authority with a letter of introduction. I was wondering, some days after, that I had had no tidings of the success or failure of my friend's mission, when he entered my study, caught hold of both my hands, and told me I had rendered him an essential service in bringing him to the notice of the MasterGeneral of the Ordnance; for that, through his kind representations, and in recognition of the importance of the information he had rendered to Government, an eligible appointment had been conferred on him in a part of the world with which he was familiar, and to which he was partial. Eight years after, I received a curious confirmation of the truth of the above facts from the lips of a zealous member of the then Administration. In the year i860, I arrived, one evening, about eight o'clock, at Gibb's Hotel, Prince's Street, Edinburgh. On entering the upstairs coffee-room, I observed that there was but one person in the room. His back was turned to me, and his attention divided between the mastication of a chop, and the digestion of an article in the 'National Review.' As I walked up towards the fireplace, the gentleman raised his eyes from his book to look at the intruder. To my surprise, I found it was the Right Hon. James Wilson, from 1853 to 1858 the indefatigable Financial Secretary of the Treasury, and afterwards Financial Member of the Council in. India, where he fell a victim to hard work and an unhealthy climate. After the ordinary touch-and-go gossip, which arises between people who know but little of each other, and have not met for some time, Mr. Wilson told me he had been reading a very...
