The Founders of Canterbury
Charles Buller, Esq., M.P
Charles Buller, Esq., M.P.
My Dear Buller,
—I cannot resist the temptation to write and congratulate you on the Poor-Law appointment. It takes you out of a miserably wrong position, and at length gives you a fair opportunity of earning the distinction which your talents must command whenever you both will and can exert them. The sinecure, with a pretence of colonizing work, whilst you were muzzled and yet held responsible for lamentable failure, was destroying you as a public man. I heard some people say that you must have been "mad" to make the change: they little know: I think it a most wise step for your own sake merely. For now, indeed, you have a great field, lots of responsibility, and an unavoidable necessity for doing and speaking. It is just the thing for you, short of being at the head of a great department; and the other was detestable.
Nor do I despise the change on selfish grounds for my own sake; namely, that I hope our old sympathies on colonizing matters may now be revived, at least in private. My book on the Art of Colonization is taking a shape for the press; and I page 7have a real satisfaction in feeling now, that I can speak the truth without risk of hurting you.
With kind regards to Fleming,
Yours ever most truly,
E. G. Wakefield.