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PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH.

PREFACE.

THE assistance which I have received in preparing this Memoir of Thomas Drummond is amply acknowledged in the text. It is proper, however, to define in a sentence or two the precise extent of it. In regard to his professional life (and not farther) I have had the hearty co-operation of Major-General Sir T. A. Larcom, the present Under Secretary in Ireland, of whose brief but able Memoir of Drummond I have also freely availed myself. Some papers put at my disposal by Sir J. F. W. Herschel illustrate this part of Mr Drummond's life and the first stages of his political employment; on which, also, some light is thrown by Miss Martineau. With regard to the Irish part of the life, I owe most to the Right Honourable Maziere Brady, the late Irish Lord Chancellor, who was Drummond's very intimate friend, and, successively, Law-adviser to the Chief Secretary, Solicitor-General, and Attorney-General, under the Mulgrave and Ebrington Administrations. The aid he has given me has been limited to the determination of obscure facts, and he is nowise responsible either for my opinions, or for the manner in which I have expressed them. Drummond's political correspondence during his tenure of office in Ireland, which was carried on with some of the most important political personages of the time, I have not had at my disposal. His home

correspondence, so far as it has been preserved, was placed in my hands by his sister, by whom also the facts of his early life have been supplied.

To my friend Mr Robert Cox I have to express my obligations for valuable assistance in putting the work through the press, and in supplying a copious index.

Should this memoir of a noble man be of use as a contribution to the information of the public on Irish subjects, it will serve a purpose which, as subsidiary to the interest more properly biographical, I have had much at heart in writing it.

The present state of Ireland might justify some curiosity as to its history and condition in past times. In this work will be found a record-very imperfect it is true of the only great effort yet put forth for the renovation of that unhappy land. It was a failure. The Administration, however, which made the attempt, and in which Mr Drummond was a leading figure, removed one obstacle to the renovation by extinguishing all just complaint of misgovernment. Since 1835 the spirit of the Executive in Ireland has been excellent. The evils to be remedied, however, have lain, and lie, too deep in the institutions and jurisprudence of the country to be reached by the Executive; and till British statesmen fearlessly face them in a perfectly honest and just spirit, the annals of Ireland must continue to be, as heretofore, a record of the misery and unrest of the people, their conspiracies and attempts at rebellion, their punishment and humiliation.

J. F. M'LENNAN.

EDINBURGH, May 24, 1867.

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