NOTE.

THE original plan for the arrangement of Lord Hobart's writings has been changed since this work was begun. Mr. Carmichael has consented to edit the Letters and Minutes on Indian Questions. For this kind help I am most grateful. He was very highly appreciated by Lord Hobart.

For five years ending December, 1883, Mr. Carmichael was a Member of the Madras Council, and he was officiating as Chief Secretary to that Government during the last year of Lord Hobart's life.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

At the time when Wycliffe was rousing the religious world, and the insurrection caused by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw was convulsing the south-west of England, and the Battle of Otterburn had ended in the defeat of the English, the records of a village in Suffolk tell us that in 1389 there lived one John Hobarte, of the Tye, in Monks' Eleigh.

A hundred years later at Monks' Eleigh, towards the end of the fifteenth century, appeared a descendant, known as Sir James Hobart, Knight, and AttorneyGeneral to Henry VII. Sir James Hobart died at his Manor House, Hales, or Loddon Hall. He built Loddon Church, and was Recorder of the city of Norwich, to which city he was a great benefactor. Henry VII. was glad to use the said Attorney to enforce some of his heaviest exactions, and it may be presumed that the post was lucrative, and that the family were increasing in wealth.

From 1613 to 1625, which was the year of the accession of Charles I., Sir James Hobart's great-grandson, Sir Henry Hobart, was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In 1596 he had bought Intwood of the Greshams, and lived there for some twenty years, but in 1616 he

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