We omitted to mention last week that Mr. Hammond, after
fifty years passed in the public service, had resigned his post as Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. Mr. Hammond musthave had power of some sort, to be so trusted by successive Govern- ments, and he certainly had vast knowledge ; but he was very greedy of power, very indisposed to promote young men, and of late entirely wanting in political foresight. It was only a few days before the Hohenzollern candidature for the throne of Spain that he informed Lord Granville he had never known the political horizon so clear. His successor, Lord Tenterden, is a much younger man, and though his only great public service has been connected with the Arbitration Treaty of Washington, which the public do not like, he will probably find us a few competent plenipotentiaries. The work of the Foreign Office now is to find resolute agents, who will go straight to the point up to which Government will back them, and no farther.
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