"I gave to Mrs. Cartier and my daughters your kind message of good
wishes for them and myself during this present year. We are all
thankful to you. Have the goodness to accept in return from them and
myself for you, Mrs. Watkin, and your dear son and daughter, our best
wishes for the prosperity and happiness of you all.
"I must say, my dear Mr. Watkin, that with regard to the C. B. matter,
you do really take too much trouble and interest for me. I am very
thankful to you for it, and also to Mr. Baring and Lord Wharncliffe. If
you have occasion to intimate to them my thankfulness, if any
opportunity for so doing should offer itself to you, you would oblige
me very much.
"Really it was too kind of Lord Wharncliffe to have brought that
delicate matter before Lord Derby, and to have written you about it. I
thank you for the enclosures you have made to me of what Lord
Wharncliffe had written to you about the C. B.
"I have now to tell you something which happened about that subject
since my last to you.
"You very likely must have seen or heard of the 'notification,'
published in the 'London Gazette' at the end of the month of
December last, about the honors distributed in Canada in
connection with the 'Confederation.' In that 'notification' you must
have seen that the names of 'myself and Galt' are omitted, and it was
stated in that notification that it must be 'substituted' for
the 'one' published on the 9th of July last, in which Galt's name and
mine were inserted as C. B. Now, you must recollect that some
months ago I wrote you about a 'confidential communication' of the Duke
of Buckingham to Lord Monck, in order that it should be intimated to me
and Gait, that there was no precedent of a resignation of the Order of
the Bath, and that the only way left for the carrying out of
Galt's wishes and mine would be by 'an order of Her Majesty ordering
our names to be struck off the roll.' The communication of the Duke
having been made to me in a confidential manner, I had no
opportunity to answer it.
