In a letter to his American friend, Mr.Reed, dated 8th November, 1854, he says; "The secretaryship of our Legation at Washington was vacant the other day, and I instantly asked for it; but in the very kindest letter Lord Clarendon showed how the petition was impossible.

First, the place was given away.

Next, it would not be fair to appoint out of the service.
But the first was an excellent reason;--not a doubt of it." The validity of the second was probably not so apparent to him as it is to one who has himself waited long for promotion.

"So if ever I come," he continues, "as I hope and trust to do this time next year, it must be in my own coat, and not the Queen's." Certainly in his own coat, and not in the Queen's, must Thackeray do anything by which he could mend his fortune or make his reputation.

There never was a man less fit for the Queen's coat.
Nevertheless he held strong ideas that much was due by the Queen's ministers to men of letters, and no doubt had his feelings of slighted merit, because no part of the debt due was paid to him.