CLOSE OF APPRENTICESHIP
(_1839-1841_)
What are great gifts but the correlative of great work? We are not
born for ourselves, but for our kind, for our neighbours, for our
country: it is but selfishness, indolence, a perverse
fastidiousness, an unmanliness, and no virtue or praise, to bury
our talent in a napkin.--CARDINAL NEWMAN.
Along with his domestic and parliamentary concerns, we are to recognise
the ferment that was proceeding in Mr. Gladstone's mind upon new veins
of theology; but it was an interior working of feeling and reflection,
and went forward without much visible relation to the outer acts and
facts of his life during this period. As to those, one entry in the
diary (Feb. 1st, 1839) tells a sufficient tale for the next two years.
'I find I have, besides family and parliamentary concerns and those of
study, _ten_ committees on hand: Milbank, Society for Propagation of the
Gospel, Church Building Metropolis, Church Commercial School, National
Schools inquiry and correspondence, Upper Canada, Clergy, Additional
Curates' Fund, Carlton Library, Oxford and Cambridge Club. These things
distract and dissipate my mind.' Well they might; for in any man with
less than Mr. Gladstone's amazing faculty of rapid and powerful
concentration, such dispersion must have been disastrous both to
effectiveness and to mental progress. As it is, I find little in the way
of central facts to remark in either mental history or public action. He
strayed away occasionally from the Fathers and their pastures and dipped
into the new literature of the hour, associated with names of dawning
popularity. Carlyle he found hard to lay down. Some of Emerson, too, he
became acquainted with, as we have already seen; but his mind was far
too closely filled with transcendentalisms of his own to offer much
hospitality to the serene and beautiful transcendentalism of Emerson. He
read _Oliver Twist_ and _Nicholas Nickleby_, and on the latter he makes
a characteristic comment--'the tone is very human; it is most happy in
touches of natural pathos. No church in the book, and the motives are
not those of religion.' So with Hallam's _History of Literature_,
'Finished (Oct. 10, 1839) his theological chapter, in which I am sorry
to find amidst such merits, what is even far more grievous than his
anti-church sarcasms, such notions on original sin as in iv. p. 161.' He
found Chillingworth's _Religion of Protestants_ 'a work of the most
mixed merits,' an ambiguous phrase which I take to mean not that its
merits were various, but that they were much mixed with those demerits
for which the puritan Cheynell baited the unlucky latitudinarian to
death. About this time also he first began Father Paul's famous history
of the Council of Trent, a work that always stood as high in his esteem
as in Macaulay's, who liked Sarpi the best of all modern historians.
To the great veteran poet of the time Mr. Gladstone's fidelity was
unchanging, even down to compositions that the ordinary Wordsworthian
gives up:--
Read aloud Wordsworth's _Cumberland Beggar_ and _Peter Bell_. The
former is generally acknowledged to be a noble poem. The same
justice is not done to the latter; I was more than ever struck with
the vivid power of the descriptions, the strong touches of feeling,
the skill and order with which the plot upon Peter's conscience is
arranged, and the depth of interest which is made to attach to the
humblest of quadrupeds. It must have cost great labour, and is an
extraordinary poem, both as a whole and in detail.
Let not the scorner forget that Matthew Arnold, that admirable critic
and fine poet, confesses to reading _Peter Bell_ with pleasure and
edification.
In the political field he moved steadily on. Sir R. Peel spoke to him
(April 19, 1839) in the House about the debate and wished him to speak
after Sheil, if Graham, who was to speak about 8 or 9, could bring him
up. Peel showed him several points with regard to the committee which he
thought might be urged. 'This is very kind in him as a mark of
confidence; and assures me that if, as I suspect, he considers my book
as likely to bring me into some embarrassment individually, yet he is
willing to let me still act under him, and fight my own battles in that
matter as best with God's help I may, which is thoroughly fair. It
imposes, however, a great responsibility. I was not presumptuous enough
to dream of following Sheil; not that his speech is formidable, but the
impression it leaves on the House is. I meant to provoke him. A mean man
may fire at a tiger, but it requires a strong and bold one to stand his
charge; and the longer I live, the more I feel my own (intrinsically)
utter _powerlessness_ in the House of Commons. But my principle is
this--not to shrink from any such responsibility when laid upon me by a
competent person. Sheil, however, did not speak, so I am reserved and
may fulfil my own idea, please God, to-night.'
THE JAMAICA CASE
We come now to one of the memorable episodes in this vexed decade of our
political history. The sullen demon of slavery died hard. The negro
still wore about his neck galling links of the broken chain. The
transitory stage of apprenticeship was in some respects even harsher
than the bondage from which it was to bring deliverance, and the old
iniquity only worked in new ways. The pity and energy of the humane at
home drove a perplexed and sluggish government to pass an act for
dealing with the abominations of the prisons to which the unhappy blacks
were committed in Jamaica. The assembly of that island, a planter
oligarchy, resented the new law from the mother country as an invasion
of their constitutional rights, and stubbornly refused in their
exasperation, even after a local dissolution, to perform duties that
were indispensable for working the machinery of administration. The
cabinet in consequence asked parliament (April 9th) to suspend the
constitution of Jamaica for a term of five years. The tory opposition,
led by Peel with all his force, aided by the aversion of a section of
the liberals to a measure in which they detected a flavour of
dictatorship, ran the ministers (May 6th) within five votes of defeat on
a cardinal stage.
'I was amused,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'with observing yesterday the
differences of countenance and manner in the ministers whom I met on my
ride. Ellice (their friend) would not look at me at all. Charles Wood
looked but askance and with the hat over the brow. Grey shouted, "Wish
you joy!" Lord Howick gave a remarkably civil and smiling nod; and
Morpeth a hand salute with all his might, as we crossed in riding. On
Monday night after the division, Peel said just as it was known and
about to be announced, "Jamaica was a good horse to start."' Of his own
share in the performance, Mr. Gladstone only says that he spoke a dry
speech to a somewhat reluctant House. 'I cannot work up my matter at all
in such a plight. However, considering what it was, they behaved very
well. A loud cheer on the announcement of the numbers from our people,
in which I did not join.'
To have won the race by so narrow a majority as five seemed to the
whigs, wearied of their own impotence and just discredit, a good plea
for getting out of office. Peel proceeded to begin the formation of a
government, but the operation broke down upon an affair of the
bedchamber. He supposed the Queen to object to the removal of any of the
ladies of her household, and the Queen supposed him to insist on the
removal of them all. The situation was unedifying and nonsensical, but
the Queen was not yet twenty, and Lord Melbourne had for once failed to
teach a prudent lesson. A few days saw Melbourne back in office, and in
office he remained for two years longer.[137]
II
MARRIAGE
In June 1839 the understanding arrived at with Miss Catherine Glynne
during the previous winter in Sicily, ripened into a definite
engagement, and on the 25th of the following July their marriage took
place amid much rejoicing and festivity at Hawarden. At the same time
and place, Mary Glynne, the younger sister, was married to Lord
Lyttelton. Sir Stephen Glynne, their brother, was the ninth, and as was
to happen, the last baronet. Their mother, born Mary Neville, was the
daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke and Mary Grenville his wife,
sister of the first Marquis of Buckingham. Hence Lady Glynne was one of
a historic clan, granddaughter of George Grenville, the minister of
American taxation, and niece of William, Lord Grenville, head of the
cabinet of All the Talents in 1806. She was first cousin therefore of
the younger Pitt, and the Glynnes could boast of a family connection
with three prime ministers, or if we choose to add Lord Chatham who
married Hester Grenville, with four.[138] 'I told her,' Mr. Gladstone
recorded on this occasion of their engagement (June 8th), 'what was my
original destination and desire in life; in what sense and manner I
remained in connection with politics.... I have given her (led by her
questions) these passages for canons of our living:--
'Le fronde, onde s'infronda tutto l'orto
Dell' Ortolano eterno, am' io cotanto,
Quanto da lui a lor di bene è porto.'[139]
And Dante again--
'In la sua volontade è nostra pace:
Ella è quel mare, al qual tutto si muove.'[140]
In few human unions have the good hopes and fond wishes of a bridal day
been better fulfilled or brought deeper and more lasting content. Sixty
long years after, Mr. Gladstone said, 'It would not be possible to
unfold in words the value of the gifts which the bounty of Providence
has conferred upon me through her.' And the blessing remained radiant
and unclouded to the distant end.
At the close of August, after posting across Scotland from Greenock by a
route better known now than then to every tourist, the young couple made
their way to Fasque, where the new bride found an auspicious approach
and the kindest of welcomes. Her 'entrance into her adoptive family was
much more formidable than it would be to those who had been less loved,
or less influential, or less needed and leant upon, in the home where
she was so long a queen.' At Fasque all went as usual. Soon after his
arrival, his father communicated that he meant actually to transfer to
his sons his Demerara properties--Robertson to have the management.
'This increased wealth, so much beyond my needs, with its attendant
responsibility is very burdensome, however on his part the act be
beautiful.'
III
The parliamentary session of 1840 was unimportant and dreary. The
government was tottering, the conservative leaders were in no hurry to
pluck the pear before it was ripe, and the only men with any animating
principle of active public policy in them were Cobden and the League
against the Corn Law. The attention of the House of Commons was mainly
centred in the case of Stockdale and the publication of debates. But Mr.
Gladstone's most earnest thoughts were still far away from what he found
to be the dry sawdust of the daily politics, as the following lines may
show:--
_March 16th, 1849._--Manning dined with us. He kindly undertook
to revise my manuscript on 'Church Principles.'
_March 18th._--Yesterday I had a long conversation with James
Hope. He came to tell me, with great generosity, that he would
always respond to any call, according to the best of his power,
which I might make on him for the behalf of the common cause--he
had given up all views of advancement in his profession--he had
about £400 a year, and this, which includes his fellowship, was
quite sufficient for his wants; his time would be devoted to
church objects; in the intermediate region he considered himself as
having the first tonsure.
Hope urged strongly the principle, 'Let every man abide in the
calling ----' I thought even over strongly. My belief is that he
foregoes the ministry from deeming himself unworthy.... The object
of my letter to Hope was in part to record on paper my abhorrence
of party in the church, whether Oxford party or any other.
_March 18th._--To-day a meeting at Peel's on the China question;
considered in the view of censure upon the conduct of the
administration, and a motion will accordingly be made objecting to
the attempts to force the Chinese to modify their old relations
with us, and to the leaving the superintendent without military
force. It was decided not to move simultaneously in the
Lords--particularly because the radicals would, if there were a
double motion, act not on the merits but for the ministry.
Otherwise, it seemed to be thought we should carry a motion. The
Duke of Wellington said, 'God! if it is carried, they will go,'
that they were as near as possible to resignation on the last
defeat, and would not stand it again. Peel said, he understood four
ministers were then strongly for resigning. The duke also said, our
footing in China could not be re-established, unless under some
considerable naval and military demonstration, now that matters had
gone so far. He appeared pale and shaken, but spoke loud and a good
deal, much to the point and with considerable gesticulation. The
mind's life I never saw more vigorous.
THE CHINA QUESTION
The Chinese question was of the simplest. British subjects insisted on
smuggling opium into China in the teeth of Chinese law. The British
agent on the spot began war against China for protecting herself against
these malpractices. There was no pretence that China was in the wrong,
for in fact the British government had sent out orders that the
opium-smugglers should not be shielded; but the orders arrived too late,
and war having begun, Great Britain felt bound to see it through, with
the result that China was compelled to open four ports, to cede Hong
Kong, and to pay an indemnity of six hundred thousand pounds. So true is
it that statesmen have no concern with pater nosters, the Sermon on the
Mount, or the _vade mecum_ of the moralist. We shall soon see that this
transaction began to make Mr. Gladstone uneasy, as was indeed to be
expected in anybody who held that a state should have a conscience.[141]
On April 8, 1840, his journal says: 'Read on China. House.... Spoke
heavily; strongly against the trade and the war, having previously asked
whether my speaking out on them would do harm, and having been
authorised.' An unguarded expression brought him into a debating scrape,
but his speech abounded in the pure milk of what was to be the
Gladstonian word:--
I do not know how it can be urged as a crime against the Chinese
that they refused provisions to those who refused obedience to
their laws whilst residing within their territory. I am not
competent to judge how long this war may last, nor how protracted
may be its operations, but this I can say, that a war more unjust
in its origin, a war more calculated in its progress to cover this
country with disgrace, I do not know and I have not read of. Mr.
Macaulay spoke last night in eloquent terms of the British flag
waving in glory at Canton, and of the animating effect produced
upon the minds of our sailors by the knowledge that in no country
under heaven was it permitted to be insulted. But how comes it to
pass that the sight of that flag always raises the spirits of
Englishmen? It is because it has always been associated with the
cause of justice, with opposition to oppression, with respect for
national rights, with honourable commercial enterprise, but now
under the auspices of the noble lord [Palmerston] that flag is
hoisted to protect an infamous contraband traffic, and if it were
never to be hoisted except as it is now hoisted on the coast of
China, we should recoil from its sight with horror, and should
never again feel our hearts thrill, as they now thrill, with
emotion when it floats magnificently and in pride upon the
breeze.... Although the Chinese were undoubtedly guilty of much
absurd phraseology, of no little ostentatious pride, and of some
excess, justice in my opinion is with them, and whilst they the
pagans and semi-civilised barbarians have it, we the enlightened
and civilised Christians are pursuing objects at variance both with
justice and with religion.[142]
_May 14th._--Consulted [various persons] on opium. All but Sir R.
Inglis were on grounds of prudence against its [a motion against
the compensation demanded from China] being brought forward. To
this majority of friendly and competent persons I have given way, I
hope not wrongfully; but I am in dread of the judgment of God upon
England for our national iniquity towards China. It has been to me
matter of most painful and anxious consideration. I yielded
specifically to this; the majority of the persons most trustworthy
feel that to make the motion would, our leaders being in such a
position and disposition with respect to it, injure the cause.
_June 1st._--Meeting of the Society for Suppression of the Slave
Trade. [This was the occasion of a speech from Prince Albert, who
presided.] Exeter Hall crammed is really a grand spectacle. Samuel
Wilberforce a beautiful speaker; in some points resembles Macaulay.
Peel excellent. _June 12th._--This evening I voted for the Irish
education grant; on the ground that in its principle, according to
Lord Stanley's letter, it is identical practically with the English
grant of '33-8, and I might have added with the Kildare Place
grant. To exclude doctrine from exposition is in my judgment as
truly a mutilation of scripture, as to omit bodily portions of the
sacred volume.
SOCIAL DIVERSION
His first child and eldest son was born (June 3), and Manning and Hope
became his godfathers; these two were Mr. Gladstone's most intimate
friends at this period. Social diversions were never wanting. One June
afternoon he went down to Greenwich, 'Grillion's fish dinner to the
Speaker. Great merriment; and an excellent speech from Stanley, "good
sense and good nonsense." A modest one from Morpeth. But though we dined
at six, these expeditions do not suit me. I am ashamed of paying £2,
10s. for a dinner. But on this occasion the object was to do honour to a
dignified and impartial Speaker.' He had been not at all grateful, by
the way, for the high honour of admission to Grillion's dining club this
year,--'a thing quite alien to my temperament, which requires more
soothing and domestic appliances after the feverish and consuming
excitements of party life; but the rules of society oblige me to
submit.' As it happened, so narrow is man's foreknowledge, Grillion's
down to the very end of his life, nearly sixty years ahead, had no more
faithful or congenial member.
_July 1st._--Last evening at Lambeth Palace I had a good deal of
conversation with Colonel Gurwood about the Duke of Wellington and
about Canada. He told me an anecdote of Lord Seaton which throws
light upon his peculiar reserve, and shows it to be a modesty of
character, combined no doubt with military habits and notions. When
Captain Colborne, and senior officer of his rank in the 21st foot,
he [Lord Seaton] was military secretary to General Fox during the
war. A majority in his regiment fell vacant, Gen. Fox desired him
to ascertain who was the senior captain on the _command_. 'Captain
So-and-so of the 80th [I think].' 'Write to Colonel Gordon and
recommend him to his royal highness for the vacant majority.' He
did it. The answer came to this effect: 'The recommendation will
not be refused, but we are surprised to see that it comes in the
handwriting of Captain Colborne, the very man who, according to the
rules of the service, ought to have this majority.' General Fox had
forgotten it, and Captain Colborne had not reminded him! The error
was corrected. He (Gurwood) said he had never known the Duke of
Wellington speak on the subject of religion but once, when he
quoted the story of Oliver Cromwell on his death-bed, and said:
'That state of grace, in my opinion, is a state or habit of doing
right, of persevering in duty, and to fall from it is to cease from
acting right.' He always attends the service at 8 A.M. in the
Chapel Royal, and says it is a duty which ought to be done, and the
earlier in the day it is discharged the better. _July 24th._ Heard
[James] Hope in the House of Lords against the Chapters bill; and
he spoke with such eloquence, learning, lofty sentiment, clear and
piercing diction, continuity of argument, just order, sagacious
tact, and comprehensive method, as one would say would have
required the longest experience as well as the greatest natural
gifts. Yet he never acted before, save as counsel for the Edinburgh
and Glasgow railway. If hearts are to be moved, it must be by this
speech.[143] _July 27th_.--Again went over and got up the subject
of opium compensation as it respects the Chinese. I spoke thereon
1½ hours for the liberation of my conscience, and to afford the
friends of peace opposite an opportunity, of which they would not
avail themselves.
In August he tells Mrs. Gladstone how he has been to dine with 'such an
odd party at the Guizots'; Austin, radical lawyer; John Mill, radical
reviewer; M. Gaskell, Monckton Milnes, Thirlwall, new Bishop of St.
David's, George Lewis, poor law commissioner. Not very ill mixed,
however. The host is extremely nice.' An odd party indeed; it comprised
four at least of the strongest heads in England, and two of the most
illustrious names of all the century in Europe.
EXAMINER AT ETON
In March (1840) Mr. Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton went to Eton together
to fulfil the ambitious functions of examiner for the Newcastle
scholarship. In thanking Mr. Gladstone for his services, Hawtrey speaks
of the advantage of public men of his stamp undertaking such duties in
the good cause of the established system of education, 'as against the
nonsense of utilitarians and radicals.' The questions ran in the
familiar mould in divinity, niceties of ancient grammar, obscurities of
classical construction, caprices of vocabulary, and all the other points
of the old learning. The general merit Mr. Gladstone found 'beyond
anything possible or conceivable' when he was a boy at Eton a dozen
years before:--
We sit with the boys (39 in number) and make about ten hours a day
in looking over papers with great minuteness.... Although it is in
quantity hard work, it is lightened by a warm interest, and the
refreshment of early love upon a return to this sweet place. It is
work apart from human passion, and is felt as a moral relaxation,
though it is not one in any other sense.... This is a curious
experience to me, of jaded body and mind refreshed. I propose for
Latin theme a little sentence of Burke's which runs to this effect,
'Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation
is not of more service to the people than to kings.' _April
2nd._--The statistics become excessively interesting. Henry Hallam
gained, and now stands second [the brother of his dead friend].
_April 3rd._--In, 6 hours; out, from 4 to 5 hours more upon the
papers. Vinegar, thank God, carries my eyes through so much MS.,
and the occupation is deeply interesting, especially on Hallam's
account. Our labours were at one time anxious and critical, the two
leaders being 1388 and 1390 respectively. At night, however, all
was decided. _April 4th._ 12.2.--_Viva voce_ for fourteen select.
At 2½ Seymour was announced scholar to the boys, and chaired
forthwith. Hallam, medallist. It was quite overpowering.
Henry Hallam was the second son of the historian, the junior of Arthur
by some fourteen or fifteen years. Mr. Gladstone more than a generation
later described a touching supplement to his Eton story. 'In 1850 Henry
Hallam had attained an age exceeding only by some four years the limit
of his brother's life. During that autumn I was travelling post between
Turin and Genoa, upon my road to Naples. A family coach met us on the
road, and the glance of a moment at the inside showed me the familiar
face of Mr. Hallam. I immediately stopped my carriage, descended, and
ran after his. On overtaking it, I found the dark clouds accumulated on
his brow, and learned with indescribable pain that he was on his way
home from Florence, where he had just lost his second and only remaining
son, from an attack corresponding in its suddenness and its devastating
rapidity with that which had struck down his eldest born son seventeen
years before.'
At Fasque, where his autumn sojourn began in September, he threw himself
with special ardour into his design for a college for Scotch
episcopalians, especially for the training of clergy. He wrote to
Manning (Aug. 31, 1840):--
Hope and I have been talking and writing upon a scheme for raising
money to found in Scotland a college akin in structure to the
Romish seminaries in England; that is to say, partly for training
the clergy, partly for affording an education to the children of
the gentry and others who now go chiefly to presbyterian schools or
are tended at home by presbyterian tutors. I think £25,000 would do
it, and that it might be got. I must have my father's sanction
before committing myself to it. Hope's intended absence for the
winter is a great blow. Were he to be at home I do not doubt that
great progress might be made. In the kirk toil and trouble, double,
double, the fires burn and cauldrons bubble: and though I am not
sanguine as to very speedy or extensive resumption by the church of
her spiritual rights, she may have a great part to play. At present
she is very weakly manned, and this is the way I think to
strengthen the crew.
GLENALMOND
The scheme expanded as time went on. His father threw himself into it
with characteristic energy and generosity, contributing many thousand
pounds, for the sum required greatly exceeded the modest figure above
mentioned. Mr. Gladstone conducted a laborious and sometimes vexatious
correspondence in the midst of more important public cares. Plans were
mature, and adequate funds were forthcoming, and in the autumn of 1842
Hope and the two Gladstones made what they found an agreeable tour,
examining the various localities for a site, and finally deciding on a
spot 'on a mountain-stream, ten miles from Perth, at the very gate of
the highlands.' It was 1846 before the college at Glenalmond was opened
for its destined purposes.[144] We all know examples of men holding
opinions with trenchancy, decision, and even a kind of fervour, and yet
with no strong desire to spread them. Mr. Gladstone was at all times of
very different temper; consumed with missionary energy and the fire of
ardent propagandism.
LETTER FROM COBDEN
He laboured hard at the fourth edition of his book, sometimes getting
eleven hours of work, 'a good day as times go,'--Montesquieu, Burke,
Bacon, Clarendon, and others of the masters of civil and historic wisdom
being laid under ample contribution. By Christmas he was at Hawarden. In
January he made a speech at a meeting held in Liverpool for the
foundation of a church union, and a few days later he hurried off to
Walsall to help his brother John, then the tory candidate, and a curious
incident happened:--
I either provided myself, or I was furnished from headquarters,
with a packet of pamphlets in favour of the corn laws. These I
read, and I extracted from them the chief material of my speeches.
I dare say it was sad stuff, furbished up at a moment's notice. We
carried the election. Cobden sent me a challenge to attend a public
discussion of the subject. Whether this was quite fair, I am not
certain, for I was young, made no pretension to be an expert, and
had never opened my lips in parliament on the subject. But it
afforded me an excellent opportunity to decline with modesty and
with courtesy as well as reason. I am sorry to say that, to the
best of my recollection, I did far otherwise, and the pith of my
answer was made to be that I regarded the Anti-Corn Law League as
no better than a big borough-mongering association. Such was my
first capital offence in the matter of protection; redeemed from
public condemnation only by obscurity.
The letters are preserved, but a sentence or two from Mr. Gladstone's to
Cobden are enough. 'The phrases which you quote from a report in the
_Times_ have reference, not to the corn law, but to the Anti-Corn Law
League and its operations in Walsall. Complaining apparently of these,
you desire me to meet you in discussion, not upon the League but upon
the corn law. I cannot conceive two subjects more distinct. I admit the
question of the repeal of the corn laws to be a subject fairly open to
discussion, although I have a strong opinion against it. But as to the
Anti-Corn Law League, I do not admit that any equitable doubt can be
entertained as to the character of its present proceedings; and,
excepting a casual familiarity of phrase, I adhere rigidly to the
substance of the sentiments which I have expressed. I know not who may
be answerable for these measures, nor was your name known to me, or in
my recollection at the time when I spoke.' Time soon changed all this,
and showed who was teacher and who the learner.
By and by the session of 1841 opened, the whigs moving steadily towards
their fall, and Mr. Gladstone almost overwhelmed with floods of domestic
business. He settled in the pleasant region which is to the metropolis
what Delphi was to the habitable earth, and where, if we include in it
Downing Street, he passed all the most important years of his life in
London.[145] Though he speaks of being overwhelmed by domestic business,
and he was undoubtedly hard beset by all the demands of early
housekeeping, yet he very speedily recovered his balance. He resisted
now and always as jealously as he could those promiscuous claims on time
and attention by which men of less strenuous purpose suffer the
effectiveness of their lives to be mutilated. 'I well know,' he writes
to his young wife who was expecting him to join her at Hagley, 'you
would not have me come on any conditions with which one's sense of duty
could not be quieted, and would (I hope) send me back by the next train.
These delays are to you a practical exemplification of the difficulty of
reconciling domestic and political engagements. The case is one that
scarcely admits of compromise; the least that is required in order to
the fulfilment of one's duty is constant bodily presence in London until
the fag-end of the session is fairly reached.'
Here are a few examples of the passing days:--
_March 12th_, 1841.--_Tracts for the Times_, No. 90; ominous.
_March 13th._--Went to see Reform Club. Sat to Bradley 2½-4. London
Library committee. Carlton Library committee. Corrected two
proof-sheets. Conversed an hour and a half with Mr. Richmond, who
came to tea, chiefly on my plan for a picture-life of Christ. Chess
with C. [his wife]. _March 14th_ (_Sunday_).--Communion (St.
James's), St. Margaret's afternoon. Wrote on Ephes. v. 1, and read
it aloud to servants. _March 20th._--City to see Freshfield.
Afternoon service in Saint Paul's. What an image, what a crowd of
images! Amidst the unceasing din, and the tumult of men hurrying
this way and that for gold, or pleasure, or some self-desire, the
vast fabric thrusts itself up to heaven and firmly plants itself on
soil begrudged to an occupant that yields no lucre. But the city
cannot thrust forth its cathedral; and from thence arises the
harmonious measured voice of intercession from day to day. The
church praying and deprecating continually for the living mass that
are dead while they live, from out of the very centre of that
mass; silent and lonesome is her shrine, amidst the noise, the
thunder of multitudes. Silent, lonesome, motionless, yet full of
life; for were we not more dead than the stones, which built into
that sublime structure witness continually to what is great and
everlasting,--did priest or chorister, or the casual worshipper but
apprehend the grandeur of his function in that spot,--the very
heart must burst with the tide of emotions gathering within it. Oh
for speed, speed to the wings of that day when this glorious
unfulfilled outline of a church shall be charged as a hive with the
operations of the Spirit of God and of His war against the world;
when the intervals of space and time within its walls, now
untenanted by any functions of that holy work, shall be thickly
occupied; and when the glorious sights and sounds which shall
arrest the passenger in his haste that he may sanctify his purposes
by worship, shall be symbols still failing to express the fulness
of the power of God developed among His people.
_March 21._--Wrote on 1 Thess. v. 17, and read it to servants. Read
_The Young Communicants_; Bishop Hall's _Life_. It seems as if at
this time the number and close succession of occupations without
any great present reward of love or joy, and chiefly belonging to
an earthly and narrow range, were my special trial and discipline.
Other I seem hardly to have any of daily pressure. Health in myself
and those nearest me; (comparative) wealth and success; no strokes
from God; no opportunity of pardoning others, for none offend me.
_April 3._--Two or three nights ago Mrs. Wilbraham told Catherine
that Stanley was extremely surprised to find, after his speech on
the Tarmworth and Rugby railway bill, that Peel had been very much
annoyed with the expression he had used: 'that his right hon.
friend had in pleading for the bill made use of all that art and
ingenuity with which he so well knew how to dress up a statement
for that House,' and that he showed his annoyance very much by his
manner to him, S., afterwards. He, upon reflecting that this was
the probable cause, wrote a note to Peel to set matters to rights,
in which he succeeded; but he thought Peel very thin-skinned. Wm.
Cowper told me the other day at Milnes's that Lord John Russell is
remarkable among his colleagues for his anxiety during the recess
for the renewal of the session of parliament; that he always argues
for fixing an early day of meeting, and finds pleas for it, and
finds the time long until it recommences.
A visit to Nuneham (April 12) and thence to Oxford brought him into the
centre of the tractarians. He saw much of Hamilton, went to afternoon
service at Littlemore, breakfasted in company with Newman at Merton, had
a long conversation with Pusey on Tract 90, and gathered that Newman
thought differently of the Council of Trent from what he had thought a
year or two back, and that he differed from Pusey in thinking the
English reformation uncatholic. Mr. Gladstone replied that No. 90 had
the appearance to his mind of being written by a man, if in, not of, the
church of England; and would be interpreted as exhibiting the Tridentine
system for the ideal, the anglican for a mutilated and _just_ tolerable
actual. Then in the same month he 'finished Palmer on the Articles,
deep, earnest, and generally trustworthy. Worked upon a notion of
private eucharistical devotions, to be chiefly compiled; and attended a
meeting about colonial bishoprics,' where he spoke but indifferently.
IV
NEW FISCAL POLICY
In 1841 the whigs in the expiring hours of their reign launched
parliament and parties upon what was to be the grand marking controversy
of the era. To remedy the disorder into which expenditure, mainly due to
highhanded foreign policy, had brought the national finance, they
proposed to reconstruct the fiscal system by reducing the duties on
foreign sugar and timber, and substituting for Wellington's corn law a
fixed eight shilling duty on imported wheat. The wiser heads, like Lord
Spencer, were aware that as an electioneering expedient the new policy
would bring them little luck, but their position in any case was
desperate. The handling of their proposals was curiously maladroit; and
even if it had been otherwise, ministerial repute alike for competency
and for sincerity was so damaged both, in the House of Commons and the
country, that their doom was certain. The reduction of the duty on
slave-grown sugar from foreign countries was as obnoxious to the
abolitionist as it was disadvantageous to the West Indian proprietors,
and both of these powerful sections were joined by the corn-grower, well
aware that his turn would come next. Many meetings took place at Sir
Robert Peel's upon the sugar resolutions, and Mr. Gladstone worked up
the papers and figures so as to be ready to speak if necessary. At one
of these meetings, by the way, he thought it worth while to write down
that Peel had the tradesmen's household books upon his desk--a
circumstance that he mentioned also to the present writer, when by
chance we found ourselves together in the same room fifty years later.
On May 10th, his speech on the sugar duties came off in due course. In
this speech he took the sound point that the new arrangement must act as
an encouragement to the slave trade, 'that monster which, while war,
pestilence, and famine were slaying their thousands, slew from year to
year with unceasing operation its tens of thousands.' As he went on, he
fell upon Macaulay for being member of a cabinet that was thus deserting
a cause in which Macaulay's father had been the unseen ally of
Wilberforce, and the pillar of his strength,--'a man of profound
benevolence, of acute understanding, of indefatigable industry, and of
that self-denying temper which is content to work in secret, and to seek
for its reward beyond the grave.' Macaulay was the last man to suffer
rebuke in silence, and he made a sharp reply on the following day,
followed by a magnanimous peace-making behind the Speaker's chair.
DEFEAT OF WHIG MINISTRY
Meanwhile the air was thick and loud with rumours. Lord Eliot told Mr.
Gladstone in the middle of the debate that there had been a stormy
cabinet that morning, and that ministers had at last made up their minds
to follow Lord Spencer's advice, to resign and not to dissolve. When the
division on the sugar duties was taken, ministers were beaten (May 19)
by a majority of 36, after fine performances from Sir Robert, and a good
one from Palmerston on the other side. The cabinet, with, a tenacity
incredible in our own day, were still for holding on until their whole
scheme, with the popular element of cheap bread in it, was fully before
the country. Peel immediately countered them by a vote of want of
confidence, and this was carried (June 4) by a majority of one:--
On Saturday morning the division in the House of Commons presented
a scene of the most extraordinary excitement. While we were in our
lobby we were told that we were 312 and the government either 311
or 312. It was also known that they had brought down Lord ---- who
was reported to be in a state of total idiocy. After returning to
the House I went to sit near the bar, where the other party were
coming in. We had all been counted, 312, and the tellers at the
government end had counted to 308; there remained behind this
unfortunate man, reclining in a chair, evidently in total
unconsciousness of what was proceeding. Loud cries had been raised
from our own side, when it was seen that he was being brought up,
to clear the bar that the whole House might witness the scene, and
every one stood up in intense curiosity. There were now only this
figure, less human even than an automaton, and two persons, R.
Stuart and E. Ellice, pushing the chair in which he lay. A loud cry
of 'Shame, Shame,' burst from our side; those opposite were silent.
Those three were counted without passing the tellers, and the
moment after we saw that our tellers were on the right in walking
to the table, indicating that we had won. Fremantle gave out the
numbers, and then the intense excitement raised by the sight we had
witnessed found vent in our enthusiastic (quite irregular) hurrah
with great waving of hats. Upon looking back I am sorry to think
how much I partook in the excitement that prevailed; but how could
it be otherwise in so extraordinary a case? I thought Lord John's a
great speech--it was delivered too under the pressure of great
indisposition. He has risen with adversity. He seemed rather below
par as a leader in 1835 when he had a clear majority, and the ball
nearly at his foot; in each successive year the strength of his
government has sunk and his own has risen.
Then came the dissolution, and an election memorable in the history of
party. Thinking quite as much of the Scotch college, the colonial
bishoprics, and Tract Ninety, as of sugar duties or the corn law, Mr.
Gladstone hastened to Newark. He was delighted with the new colleague
who had been provided for him. 'As a candidate,' he writes to his wife,
'Lord John Manners is excellent; his speaking is popular and effective,
and he is a good canvasser, by virtue not I think of effort, but of a
general kindliness and warmth of disposition which naturally shows
itself to every one. Nothing can be more satisfactory than to have such
a partner.' In his address Mr. Gladstone only touched on the poor law
and the corn law. On the first he would desire liberal treatment for
aged, sick, and widowed poor, and reasonable discretion to the local
administrators of the law. As to the second, the protection of native
agriculture is an object of the first economical and national
importance, and should be secured by a graduated scale of duties on
foreign grain. 'Manners and I,' he says, 'were returned as
protectionists. My speeches were of absolute dulness, but I have no
doubt they were sound in the sense of my leaders Peel and Graham and
others of the party.' The election offered no new incidents. One old
lady reproached him for not being content with keeping bread and sugar
from the people, but likewise by a new faith, the mysterious monster of
Puseyism, stealing away from them the bread of life. He found the
wesleyans shaky, partly because they disliked his book and were afraid
of the Oxford Tracts, and partly from his refusal to subscribe to their
school. Otherwise, flags, bands, suppers, processions, all went on in
high ceremonial order as before. Day after day passed with nothing worse
than the threat of a blue candidate, but one Sunday morning (June 26) as
people came out of church, they found an address on the walls and a dark
rumour got afloat that the new man had brought heavy bags of money. For
this rumour there was no foundation, but it inspired annoying fears in
the good and cheerful hopes in the bad. The time was in any case too
short, and at four o'clock on June 29 the poll was found to be,
Gladstone 633, Manners 630, Hobhouse 391. His own election safely over,
Mr. Gladstone turned to take part in a fierce contest in which Sir
Stephen Glynne was candidate for the representation of Flintshire, but
'bribery, faggotry, abduction, personation, riot, factious delays,
landlord's intimidations, partiality of authorities,' carried the day,
and to the bitter dismay of Hawarden, Sir Stephen was narrowly beaten.
One ancient dame, overwhelmed by the defeat of the family that for
eighty years she had idolised, cried aloud to Mrs. Gladstone, 'I am a
great woman for thinking of the Lord, but O, my dear lady, this has put
it all out of my head.' The election involved him in what would now be
thought a whimsical correspondence with one of the Grosvenor family, who
complained of Mr. Gladstone for violating the sacred canons of
electioneering etiquette by canvassing Lord Westminster's tenants. 'I
did think,' says the wounded patrician, 'that interference between a
landlord with whose opinions you were acquainted and his tenants was not
justifiable according to those laws of delicacy and propriety which I
considered binding in such cases.'
ELECTION OF 1841
At last he was able to snatch a holiday with his wife and child by the
seaside at Hoylake, which rather oddly struck him as being like Pæstum
without the temples. He read away at Gibbon and Dante until he went to
Hawarden, partly to consider the state of its financial affairs; as to
these something is to be said later. 'Walked alone in the Hawarden
grounds,' he says one day during his stay; 'ruminated on the last-named
subject [accounts], also on anticipated changes [in government]. I can
digest the crippled religious action of the state; but I cannot be a
party to exacting by blood opium compensation from the Chinese.' Then to
London (Aug. 18). He attended the select party meetings at Sir Robert
Peel's and Lord Aberdeen's. Dining at Grillion's he heard Stanley,
speaking of the new parliament, express a high opinion of Roebuck as an
able man and clear speaker, likely to make a figure; and also of Cobden
as a resolute perspicacious man, familiar with all the turns of his
subject; and when the new House assembled, he had made up his mind for
himself that '_Cobden will be a worrying man on corn_.' This was
Cobden's first entry into the House. At last the whigs were put out of
office by a majority of 91, and Peel undertook to form a government.
_Aug. 31/41._--In consequence of a note received this morning from
Sir Robert Peel I went to him at half-past eleven. The following is
the substance of a quarter of an hour's conversation. He said: 'In
this great struggle, in which we have been and are to be engaged,
the chief importance will attach to questions of finance. It would
not be in my power to undertake the business of chancellor of the
exchequer in detail; I therefore have asked Goulburn to fill that
office, and I shall be simply first lord. I think we shall be very
strong in the House of Commons if as a part of this arrangement you
will accept the post of vice-president of the board of trade, and
conduct the business of that department in the House of Commons,
with Lord Ripon as president. I consider it an office of the
highest importance, and you will have my unbounded confidence in
it.'[146]
I said, 'of the importance and responsibility of that office at the
present time I am well aware; but it is right that I should say as
strongly as I can, that I really am not fit for it. I have no
general knowledge of trade whatever; with a few questions I am
acquainted, but they are such as have come across me incidentally.'
He said, 'The satisfactory conduct of an office of that kind must
after all depend more upon the intrinsic qualities of the man, than
upon the precise amount of his previous knowledge. I also think you
will find Lord Ripon a perfect master of these subjects, and depend
upon it with these appointments at the board of trade we shall
carry the whole commercial interests of the country with us.'
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE
He resumed, 'If there be any other arrangement that you would
prefer, my value and "affectionate regard" for you would make me
most desirous to effect it so far as the claims of others would
permit. To be perfectly frank and unreserved, I should tell you,
that there are many reasons which would have made me wish to send
you to Ireland; but upon the whole I think that had better not be
done. Some considerations connected with the presbyterians of
Ireland make me prefer on the whole that we should adopt a
different plan.[147] Then, if I had had the exchequer, I should
have asked you to be financial secretary to the treasury; but under
the circumstances I have mentioned, that would be an office of
secondary importance and I am sure you will not estimate that I now
propose to you by the mere name which it bears.' He also made an
allusion to the admiralty of which I do not retain the exact form.
But I rather interposed and said, 'My objection on the score of
fitness would certainly apply with even increased force to anything
connected with the military and naval services of the country, for
of them I know nothing. Nor have I any other object in view; there
is no office to which I could designate myself. I think it my duty
to act upon your judgment as to my qualifications. If it be your
deliberate wish to make me vice-president of the board of trade, I
will not decline it; I will endeavour to put myself into harness,
and to prepare myself for the place in the best manner I can; but
it really is an apprenticeship.' He said, 'I hope you will be
content to act upon the sense which others entertain of your
suitableness for this office in particular, and I think it will be
a good arrangement both with a view to the present conduct of
business and to the brilliant destinies which I trust are in store
for you.' I answered, that I was deeply grateful for his many acts
of confidence and kindness; and that I would at once assent to the
plan he had proposed, only begging him to observe that I had
mentioned my unfitness under a very strong sense of duty and of the
facts, and not by any means as a mere matter of ceremony. I then
added that I thought I should but ill respond to his confidence if
I did not mention to him a subject connected with his policy which
might raise a difficulty in my mind. 'I cannot,' I said,
'reconcile it to my sense of right to exact from China, as a term
of peace, compensation for the opium surrendered to her.'... He
agreed that it was best to mention it; observed that in consequence
of the shape in which the Chinese affair came into the hands of the
new government, they would not be wholly unfettered; seemed to hint
that under any other circumstances the vice-president of board of
trade need not so much mind what was done in the other departments,
but remarked that at present every question of foreign relations
and many more would be very apt to mix themselves with the
department of trade. He thought I had better leave the question
suspended.
I hesitated a moment before coming away and said it was only from
my anxiety to review what I had said, and to be sure that I had
made a clean breast on the subject of my unfitness for the
department of trade. Nothing could be more friendly and warm than
his whole language and demeanour. It has always been my hope, that
I might be able to avoid this class of public employment. On this
account I have not endeavoured to train myself for them. The place
is very distasteful to me, and what is of more importance, I fear I
may hereafter demonstrate the unfitness I have to-day only stated.
However, it comes to me, I think, as a matter of plain duty; it may
be all the better for not being according to my own bent and
leaning; I must forthwith go to work, as a reluctant schoolboy
meaning well.
_Sept. 3._--This day I went to Claremont to be sworn in. When the
council was constructed, the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Liverpool
were first called in to take their oaths and seats; then the
remaining four followed, Lincoln, Eliot, Ernest Bruce, and I. The
Queen sat at the head of the table, composed but dejected--one
could not but feel for her, all through the ceremonial. We knelt
down to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and stood up to
take (I think) the councillor's oath, then kissed the Queen's hand,
then went round the table shaking hands with each member, beginning
from Prince Albert who sat on the Queen's right, and ending with
Lord Wharncliffe on her left. We then sat at the lower end of the
table, excepting Lord E. Bruce, who went to his place behind the
Queen as vice-chamberlain. Then the chancellor first and next the
Duke of Buckingham were sworn to their respective offices. C.
Greville forgot the duke's privy seal and sent him off without it;
the Queen corrected him and gave it.... Then were read and approved
several orders in council; among which was one assigning a district
to a church and another appointing Lord Ripon and me to act in
matters of trade. These were read aloud by the Queen in a very
clear though subdued voice; and she repeated 'Approved' after each.
Upon that relating to Lord R. and myself we were called up and
kissed hands again. Then the Queen rose, as did all the members of
the council, and retired bowing. We had luncheon in the same room
half an hour later and went off. The Duke of Wellington went in an
open carriage with a pair; all our other grand people with four.
Peel looked shy all through. I visited Claremont once before, 27
years ago I think, as a child, to see the place, soon after the
Princess Charlotte's death. It corresponded pretty much with my
impressions.
SWORN OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL
He secured his re-election at Newark on September 14 without opposition,
and without trouble, beyond the pressure of a notion rooted in the
genial mind of his constituency that as master of the mint he would have
an unlimited command of public coin for all purposes whether general or
particular. His reflections upon his ministerial position are of much
biographic interest. He had evidently expected inclusion in the
cabinet:--
_Sept. 16._--Upon quietly reviewing past times, and the degree of
confidence which Sir Robert Peel had for years, habitually I may
say, reposed in me, and especially considering its climax, in my
being summoned to the meetings immediately preceding the debate on
the address in August, I am inclined to think, after allowing for
the delusions of self love, that there is not a perfect
correspondence between the tenor of the past on the one hand, and
my present appointment and the relations in which it places me to
the administration on the other. He may have made up his mind at
those meetings that I was not qualified for the consultations of a
government, nor would there be anything strange in this, except the
supposition that he had not seen it before. Having however taken
the alarm (so to speak) upon the invitation at that time, and been
impressed with the idea that it savoured of cabinet office, I
considered and consulted on the Chinese question, which I regarded
as a serious impediment to office of that description, and I had
provisionally contemplated saying to Peel in case he should offer
me Ireland with the cabinet, to reply that I would gladly serve his
government in the secretaryship, but that I feared his Chinese
measures would hardly admit of my acting in the cabinet. I am very
sorry now to think that I may have been guilty of an altogether
absurd presumption, in dreaming of the cabinet. But it was wholly
suggested by that invitation. And I still think that there must
have been some consultation and decision relating to me in the
interval between the meetings and the formation of the new
ministry, which produced some alteration.... In confirmation of the
notion I have recorded above, I am distinct in the recollection
that there was a shyness in Peel's manner and a downward eye, when
he opened the conversation and made the offer, not usual with him
in speaking to me.
In after years, he thus described his position when he went to the board
of trade:--
I was totally ignorant both of political economy and of the
commerce of the country. I might have said, as I believe was said
by a former holder of the vice-presidency, that my mind was in
regard to all those matters a 'sheet of white paper,' except that
it was doubtless coloured by a traditional prejudice of protection,
which had then quite recently become a distinctive mark of
conservatism. In a spirit of ignorant mortification I said to
myself at the moment: the science of politics deals with the
government of men, but I am set to govern packages. In my journal
for Aug. 2 I find this recorded: 'Since the address meetings'
(which were quasi-cabinets) 'the idea of the Irish secretaryship
had nestled imperceptibly in my mind.'[148]
The vice-presidency was the post, by the way, impudently proposed four
years later by the whigs to Gobden, after he had taught both whigs and
tories their business. Mr. Gladstone, at least, was quick to learn the
share of 'packages' in the government of men.
REFLECTIONS ON HIS OFFICE
_Sept. 30._--Closing the month, and a period of two years
comprehended within this book, I add a few words. My position is
changed by office. In opposition I was frequently called, or
sometimes at least, to the confidential councils of the party on a
variety of subjects. In office, I shall of course have to do with
the department of trade and with little or nothing beyond. There is
some point in the query of the _Westminster Review: Whether my
appointments are a covet satire?_ But they bring great advantages;
much less responsibility, much less anxiety. I could not have made
myself answerable for what I expect the cabinet will do in China.
It must be admitted that it presents an odd appearance, when a
person whose mind and efforts have chiefly ranged within the circle
of subjects connected with the church, is put into office of the
most different description. It looks as if the first object were to
neutralise his mischievous tendencies. But I am in doubt whether to
entertain this supposition would be really a compliment to the
discernment of my superiors, or a breach of charity; therefore it
is best not entertained.
Paragraphs appeared in newspapers imputing to Mr. Gladstone a strong
reprobation of the prime minister's opinions upon church affairs, and he
thought it worth while to write to Sir Robert a strong (and most
excessively lengthy) disclaimer of being, among other things, an object
of hope to unbending tories as against their moderate and cautious
leader.[149] 'Should party spirit,' he went on, 'run very high against
your commercial measures, I have no doubt that the venom of my religious
opinions will be plentifully alleged to have infused itself into your
policy even in that direction, ... and more than ever will be heard of
your culpability in taking into office a person of my bigoted and
extreme sentiments.' Peel replied (October 19, 1841) with kindness and
good sense. He had not taken the trouble to read the paragraph; he had
read the works from which a mischievous industry had tried to collect
means of defaming their author; he found nothing in them in the most
distant manner to affect political co-operation; and he signed his name
to the letter, 'with an esteem and regard, which are proof against
evil-minded attempts to sow jealousy and discord.'[150]
FOOTNOTES:
[137] For Mr. Gladstone's later view of this transaction, see
_Gleanings_, i. p. 39. He composed a letter on the subject, which, he
says, 'will probably never see the light.'
[138] Mr. Gladstone compiled this list of the statesmen in the maternal
ancestry of his children:--
Right Hon. George Grenville, Great, great grandfather.
Sir W. Wyndham, Great, great, great grandfather.
Lord Chatham, Great, great granduncle-in-law.
Mr. Pitt, First cousin thrice removed.
Lord Grenville, Great granduncle.
Mr. Grenville, Great granduncle.
[139] _Paradiso_, xxvi. 64-6--
'Love for each plant that in the garden grows,
Of the Eternal Gardener, I prove,
Proportioned to the goodness he bestows.'--WRIGHT.
[140] _Ibid._ iii. 85. See above, p. 215.
[141] See Lord Palmerston's speech, Aug. 10, 1842.
[142] _Hansard_, 3 S. vol. 53, p. 819.
[143] 'It was the common talk of Oxford how the most distinguished
lawyer of the day, a literary man and a critic, on hearing the speech in
question, pronounced his prompt verdict on him in the words, "That young
man's fortune is made."'--Newman's Funeral Sermon on J. R. Hope-Scott in
_Sermons preached on Various Occasions_, p. 269.
[144] The reader who cares for further particulars may consult the
_Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. pp. 248, 281-8; and ii. p. 291.
[145] His first house was 13 Carlton House Terrace, then his father gave
him 6 Carlton Gardens. In 1856 he purchased 11 Carlton House Terrace,
which was his London home until 1875. From 1876 to 1880 he occupied 73
Harley Street.
[146] 'At that period the board of trade was the department which
administered to a great extent the functions that have since passed
principally into the hands of the treasury, connected with the fiscal
laws of the country.'--_Mr. Gladstone at Leeds_, Oct. 8, 1881. In 1880,
writing to Mr. Chamberlain, then president, he says: 'If you were to
look back to the records of your department thirty-five and forty years
ago, you would find how much of the public trade business was transacted
in it. Revenue was then largely involved: and hence, I imagine, it came
about that this business was taken over in a great degree by the
treasury. I myself have drawn up new tariffs in both, at the B. of T. in
1842 and 1844-5, and at the treasury in 1853 and 1860. Why and how the
old B. of T. functions also passed in part to the F.O. I do not so well
know.'
[147] I suppose this points to incompatibility in the fevers of the hour
between protestant Ulster and a Puseyite chief secretary.
[148] Autobiographic note.
[149] It would appear from the manuscript at the British Museum, that
Macaulay's sentence about Mr. Gladstone as the rising hope of the stern
and unbending tories, which later events made long so famous and so
tiresome, was a happy afterthought, written in along the margin.
[150] Parker's _Peel_, ii. pp. 514-17.