He had means to live upon. His retiring pension
could not be withheld. He could now, moreover, give his individual
powers to authorship, without feeling hampered by the thought that he
had a Government to please. He has persevered in this course,
notwithstanding the express wish of the philosophical faculty for his
return to active duty in the university.
He had been occupied with a history of the British empire in India. To
this he gave increased attention, and published it some years ago; but
the Indian rebellion breaking out soon after its publication, he was led
to sketch its history as an appendix. His investigations in the East
brought him in contact with the peculiar history of the Japanese empire,
and he threw off by the way a brief history of Japan, devoting a chapter
to the results of the American expedition thither.
It was while prosecuting his inquiries into the history of Eastern Asia,
that he met with such evidences of the commercial enterprise of the
United States, and obtained such views of the future of our country, as
to conceive the thought of writing its history for the German people,
commencing with the war of 1812, the point at which he considered our
wonderful growth and expansion to have begun; and long before finishing
his history of British India, he was collecting material for this work.
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