Lord Lyons to Mr. Stuart.
Norfolk House, March 16, 1865.
I am very much obliged by your kind letter inquiring for me. You will have seen that I have gone out of the service altogether and have become a gentleman at large without pay or pension. My health did not admit of my fixing a time for going back, and the Cabinet became nervous about leaving Washington without a Minister in these critical times. I confess I do not feel so much relief or even pleasure as might have been expected, and I seriously thought of offering to go back immediately when I heard of the decision of the Cabinet. But my own feelings as to health and still more the opinions of the doctors deterred me. I have certainly got a great deal better, but I seem to stick at a certain point. I can go about without inconvenience, but still a small thing brings on a headache. The old Legation at Washington is completely broken up. Malet goes to Lisbon, Sheffield to Frankfort and Kennedy and Seymour to Vienna. I to a certain extent enjoy being in England, but I am not well enough nor quite sufficiently satisfied with the wind up of my Washington Mission, to enjoy myself thoroughly. Lord Russell has been extremely kind to me, and so indeed has every one here, but neither I nor they can do much for my benefit while my health is in its present state.
You seem to be doing well as usual in your present post, and you are, I trust, flourishing in all respects.
In a letter to Mr. Seward expressing his regret at being prevented from thanking President Lincoln in person for the unvarying kindness and consideration shown to him during the last four eventful years the following passage occurs:—
You will find Sir Frederick Bruce (his successor at Washington) as anxious as I was to act in concert with you for the maintenance of peace and good will, and you will, I am sure, be glad to form with him the confidential and intimate relations which did so much, in my case, to make my task easy and agreeable. The friendly and unconstrained terms on which we were produced so much good, that I am most anxious that my successor's intercourse with you should be placed at once on the same footing.
Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.
Washington, March 20, 1865.