The Moorish Government have announced that they send an Envoy to England; and his object, it is reported, is to complain of the insistance and audacity which I have shown in this negotiation. I am delighted at this manœuvre because it will only tend finally to show these people I am acting up to my instructions and the views of Government. So much for Moorish politics.
Such representations on the part of the Moorish Government to the British Foreign Office were not likely to bear much weight, as may be gathered from the following farewell letter addressed to Mr. Hay by Mr. Addington, then retiring from his post as Chief Clerk at the Foreign Office.
May 18, 1854.
My dear Sir,
I have been much gratified by the receipt of your letter, written on hearing of my retirement from the Foreign Office. . . .
No act of mine, while I was in office, is remembered by me with more satisfaction and confidence than the part I had in forwarding your appointment to the post which you now enjoy so creditably to yourself and so beneficially to the public.
Some thought so young an appointment hazardous. I felt satisfied it would succeed, and I therefore pushed it on so far as it depended on me. And it has succeeded, and will yet succeed.
Go on, without swerving, in the same track; vigorous but temperate; straightforward; never condescending to indulge in paltry and un-English intrigue or tortuosity; but not despising the ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’ principle whenever you find turning the bull’s flank more likely to succeed than taking him by the horns; and always remembering that, ‘suaviter in modo, fortiter in re,’ is the real adage for subduing the world and any individual in it.
I wish you every success, and am ever yours very sincerely,
H. Ch. Addington.