That Strange should still receive commissions from official bodies – or indeed from any one at all – so incensed Mr Norrell that he complained to Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, about it.

Lord Liverpool was not sympathetic. “The generals may do as they wish, Mr Norrell. The Government does not interfere in military matters, as well you know.¹ The generals have employed Mr Strange as their magician for a number of years and they see no reason to stop simply because you and he have quarrelled. As for the East India Company I am told that its officials applied to you in the first place and that you declined to help them.”

Mr Norrell blinked his little eyes rapidly. “My work for the Government – my work for you, my lord – takes up so much of my time. I cannot, in conscience, neglect it for the sake of a private company.”

“And believe me, Mr Norrell, we are grateful. Yet I need scarcely tell you how vital the success of the East India Company is to the prosperity of the Nation and the Company’s need for a magician is immense. It has fleets of ships at the mercy of storms and bad weather; it has vast territories to administer and its armies are continually harassed by Indian princelings and bandits. Mr Strange has undertaken to controul the weather around the Cape and in the Indian Ocean and he has offered advice on the best use of magic in hostile territories. The Directors of the East India Company believe that Mr Strange’s experience in the Spanish Peninsula will prove invaluable. It is yet another demonstration of Britain’s sore need for more magicians. Mr Norrell, as diligent as you are, you cannot be everywhere and do everything – and no one expects that you should. I hear that Mr Strange has taken pupils. It would please me immensely to hear that you intended to do the same.”

Despite Lord Liverpool’s approval, the education of the three new magicians, Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy, progressed no more smoothly than Strange’s own six years before. The only difference was that whereas Strange had had Norrell’s evasiveness to contend with, the young men were continually thwarted by Strange’s low spirits and restlessness.

By early June the first volume of The History and Practice of English Magic was finished. Strange delivered it to Mr Murray and it surprized no one when, on the following day, he told Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy that they must defer their magical education for a while as he had decided to go abroad.

“I think it an excellent plan!” said Sir Walter as soon as Strange told him of it. “A change of scene. A change of society. It is exactly what I would prescribe for you. Go! Go!”

“You do not think that it is too soon?” asked Strange anxiously. “I shall be leaving Norrell in possession of London so to speak.”

“You think we have such short memories as that? Well, we shall make every endeavour not to forget you in the space of a few months. Besides, your book will be published soon and that will serve as a standing reminder to us all of how ill we get on without you.”