LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR JAMES GRAHAM SECOND BARONET OF NETHERBY - PREFACE - THE kind reception given to my Life of Sir Robert Peel from his private papers has encouraged me to take in hand another similar work. Of all Peels colleagues in the House of Commons the one most intimately allied with him in creating and guiding the Conservative Party 1835-41, in governing and legislating for Great Britain and Ireland 1841-46, in establishing Free Trade in Corn, and in guarding against Protectionist reaction 1846-50, was Sir James Graham. But also for four years before joining Peel Graham had played an active part in the Whig Cabinet of Lord Grey, especially in connection with the Reform Bill of 1832 and for eleven years after . Peels death, with Lord Aberdeen, Lord John Russell, and younger parliamentaryhands-Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, Cardwell, and the Duke of Argyll-he passed on to later times the tradition of a policy neither Tory nor Radical, but own as Liberal Conservative, or Conservative Liberal, accord ing as the one or the other tendency prevailed. With these statesmen Graham was in close touch. His correspondence with them reveals their thoughts and motives with his own, and thus provides records of value for the inner history of his times. Mr. Gladstone in his old age used to say l. that of d political papers as yet unpublished he looked with most interest to seeing Grahams. Would that he had Eved to make his comments on them Sir James Graham, in his Will, dated May 1858, thus disposed of his papers I leave all my official correspondence to my brother George Graham and the Right Honourable Sidney Herbert, M. P. I strictly enjoin that in any selection which may be made for future publication due regard may be paid to my memory, and to the fair fame of those who have corres onded with me under the sacred trust of mutual confidince, or on whose conduct I may have commented too harshly. Lord Herbert died three months before Sir James, and Major Graham saw reasons against early publication. In 1864 he wrote Soon after the death of Sir James Graham, Messrs. Saunders and Ottley commissioned . McCdagh Torrens M. P. to write his life. He applied to me for papers, but I showed him the extract from the will, and I declined giving him any. I have decided to sanction no such publication at present. Some twenty or thirty years hence the confidential letters preserved may throw light upon the actions of the statesmen who from 18 18 to 1861 were engaged in the momentous changes of that period, and may explain transactions the secret circumstances connected with which have hitherto been unrevealed. After Major Grahams death the papers were examined by Sir Jamess youngest daughter, h C . h arles Baring, and in 1893 were finally made over to her, as the person l To Mr. John Murray, and others most able to interpret her fathers in junctions. Till now hardly any leave has been given to use letters, except for Lord Stanmores short Life of Lord Aberdeen, for his recent Memoir of Lord Herbert, for my Life of Peel, and for M. Morleys Life of Gladstone. As in Peels life, so in Grahams, it has been thought well to let the statesman chiefly concerned speak mainly for himself in words used at the time of action...