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 personal predilection for you, or is more disposed to favour the views and interests of your Court, than if he did not notice you at all. This is a species of royal stage-trick, often practised, and for which it is right to be prepared.

'Whenever you receive discretionary instructions (that is, when authority is given you), in order to obtain any very desirable end, to decrease your demands or increase your concessions, according as you find the temper and disposition of the Court where you are employed, and to be extremely careful not to let it be supposed that you have any such authority; to make a firm, resolute stand on the first offer you are instructed to make, and, if you find "this nail will not drive", to bring forward your others most gradually, and not, either from an apprehension of not succeeding at all, or from an over eagerness to succeed too rapidly, injure essentially the interests of your Court.

'It is scarce necessary to say that no occasion, no provocation, no anxiety to rebut an unjust accusation, no idea, however tempting, of promoting the object you have in view, can need, much less justify, a falsehood. Success obtained by one, is a precarious and baseless success. Detection would ruin, not only your own reputation for ever, but deeply wound the honour of your Court. If, as frequently happens, an indiscreet question, which seems to require a distinct answer, is put to you abruptly by an artful Minister, parry it either by treating it as an indiscreet question, or get rid of it by a grave and serious look; but on no account contradict the assertion flatly if it be true, or admit it as true, if false and of a dangerous tendency.

'In Ministerial conferences, to exert every effort of memory to carry away faithfully and correctly what you hear (what you say in them yourself you will not forget); and in drawing your report, to be most careful it should be faithful and correct. I dwell the more on this (seemingly a useless) hint, because it is a most seducing temptation, and one to which we often give way almost unconsciously, in order to give a better turn to a phrases or to enhance our skill in negotiation; but we must remember we mislead and deceive our Government by it.'