Embassy Row

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Goodbye, Piccadilly

William Farish, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, announced his resignation over the weekend in a London newspaper article in which he praised U.S.-British relations as stronger than ever before.

"First of all, whether your point of reference is D-Day or the end of the Cold War, there is no time that the special relationship has been better," he wrote Saturday in the Times of London.

Mr. Farish praised British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has strongly supported President Bush in Iraq, and dismissed public opinion polls that showed Britons opposed to the war.

"My experience is that caricatures of the president and U.S. policy find little resonance among the British people," he wrote.

"They see the president as a plain-spoken man of principle who says what he believes. They understand that American foreign policy is motivated by a genuine desire to make the world a better, safer place for us and for our children."

Mr. Farish, president of his own trust management firm in Houston and a top Republican fund-raiser, said he plans to return to business after leaving his diplomatic post on July 10.

The ambassador took up his post in August 2001 and soon found the U.S. Embassy the focus of British mourning over the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"It is in such trying times that one discovers which friends are really true," he wrote.

Mr. Farish had no previous experience as a diplomat, but he enjoyed close relations with Queen Elizabeth II, who shares his passion for horse breeding. Mr. Farish owns a renowned horse farm in Kentucky, where the queen boards several mares.