Yours sincerely,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

P.S.—­I should consider Major Stevens an able man for a civil charge, but have never seen him.

(Signed) W. H. S.

To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
     &c. &c.

__________________________

Jhansee, 6th May, 1848.

My Dear Maddock,

Your kind letter of the 21st ultimo had prepared me for the public one of the 28th, which I got yesterday from Elliot, and I wrote off at once, to say simply that I should be glad to suspend or to withdraw the application contained in my letter of the 29th of March, as might appear best to Government; and that I should not have made it at all, had I apprehended that a compliance with it would have been attended with any inconvenience.

With the knowledge I have acquired of the duties of the several officers, and the entire command of my time here at a quiet place, and long-established methodical habits, I can get through the work very well, though it becomes trying sometimes.  Arrears I never allow to accumulate, and regular hours, and exercise, and sparing diet, with water beverage, keep me always in condition for office work.  I often wish that you could have half the command of your hours, mode of living, and movements, that I have.  However, they will soon be much more free than mine.  I am very glad that you have the one year more for a wind up; and hope that good fortune will attend you to the last.  You say nothing, however, about your foot.  The papers and letters from home have just come in.  I hear that Lord John is very unwell, and will not be able to stand the work many months more, and that Sir R. Peel is obliged to be cupped once a-week, and could not possibly take office.  Who is to take helm in the troubled ocean, no one knows.  I am glad that Metternich has been kicked out, for he and Louis Philippe are the men that have put in peril the peace and institutions of all Europe.  I only wish that the middle class was as strong in France as it is in England; it is no doubt infinitely stronger than it was; while the lower order is better than that of England, I believe, for such occasions.  They have good men now in the provisional Government—­so they had in 1788; and, like them, the present men will probably be swept away by the mob.  They are not, however, likely to be embarrassed by other nations, since the days of Pitt and George III. are passed away, and so are the feudal times when the barons could get up civil wars for their own selfish purposes.  There are no characters sufficiently prominent to get up a civil war, but the enormous size of the army is enough to create feelings of disquiet.  It is, however, officered from the middle classes, who have property at stake, and must be more or less interested in the preservation of order.