The Hangings, Ferry Hinksey, near Oxford, July 1, 1915.
* * * * *
Banbury-road, Oxford, June 30.
Dear Sir Walter Raleigh,--During the past week I have been studying
afresh the published records of the diplomatic transactions of last
July, and on my return to Oxford I find your kind letter, and
therefore take the liberty of addressing this to yourself. My new
study has forced upon me the conviction that in my letter to a friend
residing in America, which, against my wishes and injunctions, was
published there, apart from the deplorable tone of my allusions to Sir
E. Grey and Mr. Asquith, I was quite wrong in imputing the motives
which I did, especially to the former. It does appear to me, as I read
these dispatches over again, that Sir Edward throughout had in view
the peace of Europe, and that I ought to have set down to the awful
contingencies with which he was faced many passages which I was guilty
of grossly misinterpreting. I was too ready to forget that in the
years of the Balkan wars it was after all he alone who, by his patient
and conciliatory treatment of the situation, held in check the
antagonistic forces which last July he was ultimately unable to
control. I was too ready to ascribe to want of good will on his part
results which harsh necessity entailed on him; and I deeply regret
that I mistook his aims and, in my endeavour to be fair to the enemy,
was grossly unjust to him. I am only anxious to undo, if it be still
possible, some of the harm which my hasty judgment and intemperate
language has caused.
If you think it would do any good to print this, I beg you to send it
to _The Times_ and _Morning Post_, whose remarks led me to go back
once more to the documentary sources. Second thoughts are best, and if
I had only kept my American letter till the morning for revision, I
should first have struck out all the vituperation and all the
imputation of motives, and have ended by never sending it at all.