14 Preface 
on around him, Archer certainly had a sufficiently brilliant 
brain, had his education been profound enough, to have 
made him a better Prime Minister of England than some of 
the people who have held that exalted post since his days. 
He was a very intimate friend of the late Captain Machell's, 
with whom he went about a good deal, and a pet story of 
Machell's was that Fred said to him respecting an exalted lady 
having proposed marriage to him : "I don't think I had 
better do it, do you, Captain ? And, anyhow, it would not 
make me a duke ! " 
I will conclude now my aD-too-inadequate comments upon 
a very remarkable personality, but I must add ere closing how 
much the author, and everyone who knew him, regrets the 
death on the 22nd of November last of that delightful man, Sir 
Willoughby Maycock, who, at the age of nearly seventy-four^ 
succumbed after a few days' illness to a violent chill caught 
by going out on the night of the General Election. Sir 
Willoughby kindly gave the author all the assistance he could 
in this work, and this, it goes without saying, was much, 
as he possessed a wonderful memory and also had a great 
number of records of every kind. 
Thanks are also due to Mr. W. H. Clarke, the Editor 
of the Sporting Chronicle, who was kmd enough to edit 
part of the MS. and to go through the proofs. 
Arthur F. B. Portman, 
