Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 1.djvu/452

 410 APPENDIX. not bear that he should give way to rne, and thereby favour views of a more decided character than those of which ho himself was tho patron. I believe no man has entered public life in my time more pure in his personal views, and more free from grasping ambition or selfish considerations. I am much grieved that anything I have written should have been liable to an interpretation injurious to Lord Aberdeen. — I remain yours truly, Russell. Sir Arthur Gokdon to Earl Russbll. Ascot Wood, February 27. My dear Lord Russell, — I have been much gratified by your letter, and you must permit me to express my very hearty thanks to you for tho promptness and fulness with which you have responded to my appeal ; as well as for the intention you have intimated to me of correcting in a future edition of your 'Recollections ' those passages which are liable to misconstruction. It is, however, in truth, no more than I expected, for I felt certain that, when once your attention had been called to the subject, you would be the first to desire the removal of all inaccuracy or ambiguity from your pages. I do not clearly understand with respect to what subject those ' more decided views ' were held which you consider to have been distasteful to those by whom, in your opinion, Lord Aberdeen was ' beset.' Not Reform ; for on that subject you and Lord Aberdeen were in entire agreement. Not the "War ; for, as has been pointed out, the sugges- tion that he should resign in your favour was made to his colleagues by Lord Aberdeen at a moment when all danger of war was supposed to have been averted by tho accept- ance of the Vienna Note. I must also observe, that although I have named but three members of the Cabinet as approving of the suggested