of praise in defence of the Agents. They
declared, in pompous involved periods covering
more sheets of foolscap than any one had time
to read, that if there were one British institution
of which a grateful country might feel prouder
than of Magna Charta or the Habeas Corpus,
that institution was expressly the Foreign Office
Agency system; upon the whole, the Agents
were as incorruptible as our judges, and as
immaculate as our bishops. Thus this troublesome
inquiry was again shelved. But, three years
later, in 1840, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Sir F. Baring, made a personal request to Lord
Palmerston to abolish the Agencies. He felt
some delicacy in speaking to his colleague in
the Cabinet as strongly as the case demanded;
and, hence, by an unlucky fatality, selected
the Mr. Backhouse above mentioned, for his
mouthpiece.

Mr. Backhouse made the most of his
opportunity. He drew up an official paper of so
Midge-like a character that it is difficult, without,
severe attention, to elicit any meaning at all
from it. But, honestly translated after long
study into plain English, it will be found to
signify; Firstly, that the Foreign Office is a
secret department of the same kind as the
Star Chamber, or the old police tribunals
of the Austrian and Neapolitan despotisms.
Secondly, that no British subject not under the
absolute control of this mysterious department
had a right to enter there or to make inquiry
about anything which was going on, however
nearly it might concern himself or his relatives.
Thirdly, that if any unprejudiced person not
bound to secrecy, were admitted, he would be
certain to find out something wrong and report
his discovery to the public. Fourthly, that it
was inconsistent with the dignity of a hall
porter, whose wages were paid out of our taxes,
to answer a civil question addressed to him by
a taxpayer. Fifthly, that there was no clerk in
the Foreign Office who was capable of
distinguishing the address on a letter, or who would
consent to put it into a bag, without being paid
two-and-a-half per cent, upon the income of
the person to whom it was addressed. Finally,
Mr. Backhouse declared his opinion that
British diplomatists should be allowed to
smuggle valuable goods into foreign countries,
if the fraud were managed under the Queen's
seal through a Foreign Office agent; but that
this shameful formality was indispensable. The
arguments of Mr. Backhouse had the usual
effect, and he was so unreasonable and so
persistent, that Sir F. Baring and the Lords
of the Treasury at length grew weary of
the subject and returned no answer to his last
letter. Silenced and bored, however, as every
successive government had then been for sixty-four
years by the dogged opposition of these
unruly Midges, no one was ever convinced that
the Agencies were anything but a bad business;
so once more, in 1850, another commission was
appointed to investigate the long-lived
grievance. The Midges had grown more insolent
with continual impunity, and they handled
their weapons so successfully that the
commission made no report. Subsequently, Lord
Clarendon and Lord Malmesbury expressed
a strong wish to abolish the illicit gains of
the Agents, as a disgrace to one of the
principal departments of State. Mr. Layard has
publicly declared them to be a " cheating
abomination."  Lord Stanley in his turn is now
trying to suppress them. But the Agents are
still as fresh as ever in defence of their pockets.

Mr. Edmund Hammond is at present
Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, and a worthy
successor of the eminent Backhouse. Mr.
Hammond feels bound both by tradition and
usage to defend his fellow-clerks, and thus he
speaks:

"The Agency system is old. Three
Secretaries of State approved it in 1795. It is
optional. It is not obligatory. It is quite a voluntary
thing; quite. It is perfectly optional.
There is no occasion to employ an Agent. It is a
voluntary arrangement. Quite so. Yes. Doubtless
everybody is satisfied with it. Nobody
complains. It is a perfectly voluntary arrangement.
Entirely voluntary. Certainly. There
is no objection to it. Friendship is best when
bought at two-and-a-half per cent, on the
purchaser's income. Agencies are convenient
gossip shops. I (Mr. Hammond) should regret
their abolition. A gossip shop is a very good
thing. A little bought friendship relieves 'the
dull routine of official forms.' Gossip shops
must give up business if the Agencies are
abolished. The sale of friendship is beneficial
to the public service—a beneficial arrangement
for the clerks. It would be a great disadvantage
to the office to abolish Agencies. The sale of
'friendly personal relations' has the greatest
possible advantage. I (the Under-Secretary,
successor to Mr. Backhouse), 'cannot speak
too strongly upon that point.' The public
complaints that upon an average it takes
the Foreign Office twelve months to answer a
letter, and that we are now involved in a costly
war because a royal communication was not
answered at all, have nothing to do with the
Agencies. No Foreign Office clerk is ever idle,
or has ever neglected his duty, or has ever done
anything wrong whatever. No Agent ever tries
to increase his own income by promoting the
interests of his clients. Agents and angels are
synonymous terms. No such thing as an
abuse has ever been heard of." This is the
evidence of Mr. Hammond, and it was the
evidence of Mr. Backhouse before him, and also
the evidence of our worthy friend Mr.
Strangways.

Yet there are some queer discrepancies in
Mr. Hammond's evidence. He tells us over
and over again (and his reiterated answers are
reprinted to the great waste of public money), that
the Agents never abused their position; yet in
reply to question two hundred and eighty-nine
of the Select Committee of 1858, he admits
that a few years ago two clerks who had not
rendered accounts to their clients for several
years, embezzled above fifteen hundred pounds
sterling, and that when at last the poor officers
whom they had defrauded, summoned courage to