"My dear Anna,
"Many thanks for your kind interest in the approval of my writings.
"I have come to a pause in another matter. My Libyan dictionary is as complete as I can make it…. What next? I ask myself; for to be idle is soon to be miserable. I do not quite say with Clough, 'Qui laborat, orat' No! An eminent vivisector may be immensely laborious. We must choose our labour well, for then it may help us to pray better. But Coleridge is surely nearer the truth: 'He prayeth well who loveth well.' I put it, Qui inferiora recte diligit, Superiorem bene venerabitur.
"But I turn to your question, What do I think of the Coercion Bill? It is hard to say little, and painful to speak plainly. I immensely admire very much in Mr. Gladstone; so do you: of possible leaders he is the best—at present! and it is a bitter disappointment to find him a reed that pierces the hand when one leans on it. I fear you will not like me to say, what I say with pain, that only in European affairs do I find him commendable. In regard to our unjust wars he has simply betrayed and deluded the electors who enthusiastically aided him to power…. He has gone wholly wrong towards Ireland, equally as towards Afghanistan, India, and South Africa…. He knows as well as John Bright that Ireland is not only chronically injured by English institutions, but that Ireland has every reason to distrust promises.
"Those of William III in the pacification were violated; so were those of Mr. Pitt in 1801…. The very least that could soothe the Irish and give them hope is a clear enunciation what measures of relief Mr. Gladstone is resolved to propose. But he is incurably averse to definite statements, and seems as anxious as a Palmerston might be to reserve a power of shuffling out…. He tells the Boers of the Transvaal that if they will submit unconditionally, they shall meet 'generous' treatment. If the injured Basutos submit, their case will be carefully considered…. Nothing was to me more obvious than that as soon as he saw a beginning of unruly conduct in Ireland, he should have pledged himself to clearly defined measures, and have insisted on the existing law against lawlessness. But 'Boycotting' is not lawlessness. Lynch-law against oppressive landlords or their agents cannot be put down by intensifying national hatred…. Has the Coercion been wisely directed and reasonably guarded from abuse? I am sorry to say, flatly and plainly, No; and that Mr. Gladstone himself, as well as Mr. Forster, seems to have gone more and more to the wrong as the Bill moved on…. Mr. Forster's tone has been simply ferocious, out of Parliament as well as in, and Mr. Gladstone has borrowed a spice of ferocity…. To imprison (for instance) Mr. Parnell, and not tell him why, may cause an exasperation in Ireland, followed by much bloodshed…. Meanwhile, Ireland is made more and more hostile, and foreign nations more and more condemn us…. It seems to be forgotten that we have an army locked up at Candahar. That a severe spring may be its ruin, deficient as it was known to be long ago in fodder and fuel, and lately of provisions also. Cannon are of little use when horses are starved. And what may not happen in India, injured and irritated as it is, if that army were lost!… John Stuart Mill wrote that if we got into civil war with Ireland about Landed Tenure, no Government would pity us, and 'all the Garibaldis in the world' would be against us….
"Your affectionate friend,
"F. W. Newman."
The following letter concerns the Transvaal war, and is dated March 2nd, 1881:—
* * * * *
"Since Mr. Gladstone cannot have changed his judgment concerning the Beaconsfield policy in Afghanistan, in India, or in South Africa, the only inference is that (from one reason or other which I may or may not know) he is not strong enough to carry out his own convictions of right. If he was not strong enough to give back the Transvaal to the Boers, though he pronounced the annexation all but insanity, when he entered office, and had a power of stipulating on what terms alone he would be Premier, much less is he strong enough now. Not Tories only, but Whigs (to judge by their past) and the whole mass of our honest fighters, and certainly the Court, will find it an unendurable humiliation to do justice by compulsion of the Boers. Their atrocious doctrine is, that before we confess that we have done them wrong, we must first murder enough of them to show that we are the stronger. It is awful to attribute sentiment so wicked to the Premier, or to John Bright and the rising Radical element of the Ministry; but the melancholy fact is that they act before the public as if this were their doctrine…. The Coercion Bill and its errors are past and irrecoverable…. How will it now aid us to hold up to the public Mr. Gladstone's irrecoverable mistakes? That is what I cannot make out. He has destroyed public confidence in all possible successors to the Premiership, if confidence could be placed in any. I know not one who could be trusted to INSIST on stopping war and wasting no more blood. Yet the longer this war lasts, the greater the danger (1) that all the Dutch in Orange State, in Natal, in Cape Colony will unite against us; (2) that an attack on us in retreat from Candahar, where Mr. Gladstone has 'insanely' continued war, if moderately successful, may make even yet new 'vengeance' of Afghans seem 'necessary to our prestige'—such are the immoral principles dominant among Whigs as well as Tories; (3) any such embroilments may animate Ireland to insurrectionary defiance; (4) further Afghan fighting may lead to Indian revolt…. The nation has found that no possible Ministry will make common justice its rule. Penny newspapers make us widely different now from thirty or forty years ago. The masses abhor war, and will only sanction it when we seem forced to it in defence of public freedom. … The internal quiet of France has stript Republicanism of terrors to our moneyed classes. Not the thing, but the transition to it is feared: with good reason, yet perhaps not rightly in an intelligent people.