"THE EARL OF YARBOROUGH, &c., &c."


Accordingly, I went to the mansion in Portman Square. I waited some
time; but at last in stalked the Duke, looking very awful indeed--so
stern and severe--that I could not help smiling, and saying--"The burnt
coppice, your Grace." Upon this he laughed, held out his hand, placed
me beside him, and we had a very long discussion, not about the fire,
but about the colliery he, then, was sinking--against the advice of
many of his friends in Sheffield--at Shireoaks; and when he had done
with that, we talked, once more, about Canada, the United States, and
the Colonies generally.

After this date, I had to see the Duke on business, more and more
frequently. The year after the Duke's return from Canada, in 1861, he
happened to read an article I had written in a London paper, hereafter
given, about opening up the Northern Continent of America by a Railway
across to the Pacific, and he spoke of it as embodying the views which
he had before expressed, as his own.

In 1854 Mr. Glyn and Mr. Thomas Baring had urged me to undertake a
mission to Canada on the business of the Grand Trunk Railway, which
mission I had been compelled to decline; and when, in 1860-1, the
affairs of that undertaking became dreadfully entangled, the Committee
of Shareholders, who reported upon its affairs, invited me to accept
the post of "Superintending Commissioner," with full powers. They
desired me to take charge of such legislative and other measures as
might retrieve the Company's disasters, so far as that might be
possible. Before complying with this proposal, I consulted the Duke,