MY DEAREST SISTER, At first I scorned your spiteful imputation that I had not written to you by the April mail, but upon looking back into my littel boke of dates, I found it was true, and now I only wonder how you found it out. I see that it is for some years the first month I have missed writing, and for fear the case should occur again, I strongly advise that you should seal up two or three of my old Indian letters, if you can find them; and desire Streeton to bring one in on a silver waiter at the proper time. You will be quite taken in, for I have a deep conviction that my letters have all been copies one of the other, so one on the old pattern will seem quite natural to you.
Those horrid English letters of June 4 came in yesterday. They always give me a low day, but this was worse than ever. I had made up my mind that the Whigs were to be out and the Tories naming another Governor-General. I do not now think the dissolution will help them much, but others say it may, and now they have sent out full powers to George to try and mend up that Chinese mess, and he thinks that if the Whigs stay in, that he will be obliged to stay on. However, I did nothing but cry about it yesterday, and now to-day I see it all quite differently. I don’t think they will stay, nor he, nor we, and so I won’t bother you about it till I see things more dispassionately. We are to have another post in before ours goes, and that will show the turn the elections are going to take, and I think—I am not sure—but I think I can live on in the hope of that post settling our return. I always believe for the best, and this would be such a disappointment that I have a sort of faith it cannot happen, and so let us talk of something else.
I am glad Hazlewood’s visit was not very fatiguing. He is a good-hearted creature, and a shocking martyr to his wounds, but he has not half an idea in his head, and I rather thought it a bold thing to introduce him. But I daresay the pleasure to him was greater than the bore to you, and that is the way to balance those things. And then, all Indians dote on a live Countess. A stuffed one they would look up to, but a live one is really a treat.
How is Dandy? Zoe, my new dog, is decidedly a treasure, marked just like the lamented Chance, but smaller, and she does not interfere with my respect to his memory, as she has no talents and no temper, but is creepmousey, and cares for nothing and nobody but me, and requires constant petting—a familiarity Chance did not admit of. She is unluckily not used to the climate, and Brown, our coachman, who is probably disgusted at having to doctor her so often, said to me yesterday, “She is a nice little pet, ma’am, but I think the delicacy of her health will give you a great deal of trouble.” Just as if it were a delicate baby.
We had a sad incident amongst the pets yesterday. Captain Thurlow was in William’s room, and was looking at some of his daggers and playing with William’s great bloodhound. William was called out of the room, upon which Nero laid hold of poor Captain Thurlow’s nose and bit it quite through. They say he would have bit it off, if he had not been in play. But in the meanwhile Thurlow is bit and Nero sent away, an event that delights George, who always thought him an unsafe pet.
August 11, 1841.
Think of that being written three weeks ago, and Thurlow was at Barrackpore three weeks ago in attendance on his General, and his nose so dreadful that, though he only appeared by candle-light, and that for the first time since his accident, his poor dear nose made me so squeamish I could not touch a morsel of dinner. However, they say it will come right in time, but if it had been Thurlow’s dog and William’s nose, George was wondering when he should have heard the last of it.
You will see our China news, which George thinks very good as far as it goes. Charles Elliot is supposed again to have interfered too much against fighting, and to favour the Chinese pride as much as ever, and the Army and Navy are both as bitter against him as the merchants; but George is so thankful that our 2,000 men should have got out of the scrape of attacking 47,000 without utter destruction, that he is rather pleased. And then the million and a half of our money is a great point, the more so that he has just heard that four million and a half of dollars will be here in a week, just when money was most wanted.
I have had a long letter from Mrs. Elliot who had been at Canton before this attack, and out shopping where no English lady ever shopped before. She has picked up some curiosities of an expensive kind for George, and some smaller ones for me, and Fanny has got a boxful from an American to whom she gave a commission, and just because we want to unpack our little goods, it is a Hindu holiday and the Custom House is shut. Do the Hindu holidays annoy you much? But of course they do; we always felt alike.
Poor Mrs. Elliot has had a trying life of it lately. She seems pleased with this Canton business, and it is the best point at which Charles could meet his recall. I imagine from some letters of his which George showed me that it will not be a surprise to him, and he means to show the world, etc., how right he has been. I foresee a long life of pamphlets, don’t you?