The biography of a statesman to whose care “ the three greatest dependencies of the British Crown were successively entrusted,” calls for no introduction to explain or to justify the circumstance of its publication. But something may be said, in this place, respecting the materials upon which the present Memoir is based, and the considerations which have influenced the manner of its construction .

When in the autumn of 1846 Lord Metcalfe was mercifully removed from what had long been to him a world of suffering, there was found in his will a special clause, giving and bequeathing to one of his trustees " all his papers, as well those in his own possession as in the hands of his agents, Messrs. Cockerell and Company, consisting principally of private correspondence,” to be disposed of by the said trustee under instructions from the testator, and failing such instructions at his own discretion . Lord Metcalfe died , leaving no instructions regarding the papers. They, therefore, became absolutely the property of the trustee, who, after taking counsel with some of the nearest and dearest friends of the deceased, did me the honor to request that I would take charge of the papers, with the object of founding upon them a Memoir of the life of Lord Metcalfe.