Charges of a similar nature were made against officers, contractors,
quartermasters, paymasters, generals, and cabinet ministers. I am
not prepared to say that any of these men had dirty hands. It was
not for me to make inquiries on such matters. But the continuance
and universality of the accusations were dreadful. When everybody
is suspected of being dishonest, dishonesty almost ceases to be
regarded as disgraceful.

I will allude to a charge made against one member of the cabinet,
because the circumstances of the case were all acknowledged and
proved. This gentleman employed his wife's brother-in-law to buy
ships, and the agent so employed pocketed about 20,000l. by the
transaction in six months. The excuse made was that this profit was
in accordance with the usual practice of the ship-dealing trade, and
that it was paid by the owners who sold, and not by the government
which bought. But in so vast an agency the ordinary rate of profit
on such business became an enormous sum; and the gentleman who made
the plea must surely have understood that that 20,000l. was in fact
paid by the government. It is the purchaser, and not the seller,
who in fact pays all such fees. The question is this: Should the
government have paid so vast a sum for one man's work for six
months? And if so, was it well that that sum should go into the
pocket of a near relative of the minister whose special business it
was to protect the government?

American private soldiers are not pleasant fellow-travelers. They
are loud and noisy, and swear quite as much as the army could
possibly have sworn in Flanders. They are, moreover, very dirty;
and each man, with his long, thick great-coat, takes up more space
than is intended to be allotted to him. Of course I felt that if I