The agitation by the ablest orators against the corn laws had been going on for ten years, when an announcement was made in the "Times" of December 4, 1845, that Parliament would be convened the first week in January, and that the Queen's address would recommend the immediate consideration of the corn laws, preparatory to their total abolition. This startling news took the other daily papers by surprise, for there had been recently a lull in the agitation, and several of them contradicted it positively. Yet the newspapers had noticed the unusual occurrence of four cabinet meetings in one week. The original statement was confirmed. The ministry was pledged to support the measure. The hour had come, the doom of the corn laws was sealed. Mr. Gladstone's thoughts and labors for some years past had been leading him away from Protection, in which he had been brought up, in the direction of Free Trade; and although he was unable to participate in the last part of the struggle in Parliament, because he was not a member of the House, he was yet in harmony with Sir Robert Peel, and indeed is said to have converted the Premier to Free Trade views. Such a change of views was not the sudden impulse of an hour. The next step was to announce his changed convictions. And so upon other occasions in his life, his attitude on the question of the corn laws led to his separation from some old and greatly cherished political and personal friends, and among the first to disapprove of his new departure must have been his own father, who would think his son was going to ruin the country.

The Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanley informed Sir Robert Peel that they could not support a measure for the repeal of the corn laws, and Sir Robert Peel, being doubtful whether he could carry through the proposed measure in the face of such opposition, tendered his resignation as premier to the Queen. Lord John Russell was called upon to form a new ministry, but, having failed in this, the Queen desired Sir Robert Peel to withdraw his resignation, and resume the head of the government again.

It was found when the list of the new Peel Cabinet was published, that Mr. Gladstone was a member of it; having accepted the office of Colonial Secretary, in the place of Lord Stanley, who had resigned because not in sympathy with the proposed movement and of repeal. Accepting office in a ministry pledged to repeal the corn laws led to the retirement of Mr. Gladstone from the House of Commons as the representative for Newark. The Duke of New Castle, the patron and friend of Mr. Gladstone, was an ardent Protectionist, and could not sanction the candidature of a supporter of Free Trade principles. His patronage was therefore necessarily withdrawn from Mr. Gladstone. Indeed, the Duke had turned his own son, Lord Lincoln, out of the representation of Nottinghamshire for accepting office under Sir Robert Peel, and he naturally showed no mercy to the brilliant but wayward politician, whom his favor had made member for Newark. Besides, Mr. Gladstone felt he held opposite principles from those he held when elected, and that unless the constituency had changed with him, he could no longer honorably continue to represent them, even if the influence and friendship of the Duke permitted it.

Accordingly he did not offer himself for re-election, but retired and issued an address to the electors of Newark, dated January 5, 1846, of which the following is an extract: "By accepting the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies, I have ceased to be your representative in Parliament. On several accounts I should have been peculiarly desirous at the present time of giving you an opportunity to pronounce your constitutional judgment on my public conduct, by soliciting at your hands a renewal of the trust which I have already received from you on five successive occasions, and held during a period of thirteen years. But as I have good reason to believe that a candidate recommended to your favor through local connections may ask your suffrages, it becomes my very painful duty to announce to you on that ground alone my retirement from a position which has afforded me so much of honor and of satisfaction." Mr. Gladstone further goes on to explain that he accepted office because he held that "it was for those who believed the Government was acting according to the demands of public duty to testify that belief, however limited their sphere might be, by their co-operation." He had acted "in obedience to the clear and imperious call of public obligation."

It was in this way that Mr. Gladstone became a voluntary exile from the House of Commons during this important season, and took no part in the debates, his personal powerful advocacy being lost in the consideration of the great measure before the House. He was a member of the Cabinet, but not of the House of Commons. It was no secret, however, that he was the most advanced Free Trader in the Peel Cabinet, and that the policy of the government in regard to this great measure of 1846 was to a large extent moulded by him.

It is also known that his representations of the effects of Free Trade on the industry of the country and the general well-being of the people strengthened the Premier in his resolve to sweep away the obnoxious corn laws. His pamphlet on recent commercial legislation had prepared the way for the later momentous changes; and to Mr. Gladstone is due much of the credit for the speedy consummation of the Free Trade policy of the Peel Ministry. Mr. Gladstone may be regarded as the pioneer of the movement.

Just at this time a calamity occurred in Ireland which furnished Sir Robert Peel an additional argument for the prompt repeal of the corn laws; namely, a prospective famine, owing to the failure of the potato crop. With threatened famine in Ireland, such as had never been experienced, the Prime Minister saw clearly that corn must be admitted into the country free of duty. The Anti-Corn Law League was growing powerful and even irresistible, while both in England and Ireland many landlords of influence, who did not belong to the League, were in sympathy with the movement started by the Premier and ready to extend to him a hearty support.

But the friends of Protection did not leave the Premier without opposition. Knowing that Sir Robert Peel's personal influence was greater than that of any minister who had "virtually governed the empire," they used every means at their command, fair and unfair, to defeat the bill. However, their efforts were destined to failure. Some contended that the presentation and passage of the corn law repeal bill ought to be left to the Liberals. But Free Trade had not received the support of every member of the Liberal party, and Sir Robert Peel was in a position to carry out the measure, and it was not in accordance with the wisdom of practical politics to halt. Indeed, at this very juncture, Mr. Cobden wrote to the Premier that he had the power, and that it would be disastrous to the country for him to hesitate. Writing from Edinburgh, Lord John Russell announced his conversion to total and immediate repeal of the corn laws. Sir Robert Peel hesitated no longer, but, feeling that the crisis had arrived, determined to grapple with it. It was duty to country before and above fancied loyalty to party to be considered. It is strange what remedies some men deem sensible, suggested to prevent famine in Ireland.

"Obviously the Government was in difficulties. What those difficulties were it was not hard to guess. In the previous autumn it had become known that, after a long season of sunless wet, the potatoes had everywhere been attacked by an obscure disease. The failure of this crop meant an Irish famine. The steps suggested to meet this impending calamity were strange enough. The head of the English peerage recommended the poor to rely on curry-powder as a nutritious and satisfying food. Another duke thought that the government could show no favor to a population almost in a state of rebellion, but that individuals might get up a subscription. A noble lord, harmonizing materialism and faith, urged the government to encourage the provision of salt fish, and at the same time to appoint a day of public acknowledgment of our dependence on Divine goodness. The council of the Royal Agricultural Society, numbering some of the wealthiest noblemen and squires in England, were not ashamed to lecture the laborers on the sustaining properties of thrice-boiled bones."

When Parliament assembled the Premier entered into an explanation of the late ministerial crisis, and unfolded his projected plans. He said that the failure of the potato crop had led to the dissolution of the late government, that matters now could brook no further delay; that prompt action must now be taken on the Corn Laws; that the progress of reason and truth demanded it; that his opinions on the subject of Protection had undergone a great change; that the experience of the past three years confirmed him in his new views; that he could not conceal the knowledge of his convictions, however much it might lay him open to the charge of inconsistency; that, though accused of apathy and neglect, he and his colleagues were even then engaged in the most extensive and arduous inquiries into the true state of Ireland; and that, as these inquiries progressed, he has been forced to the conclusion that the protection policy was unsound and consequently untenable.

It is worthy of note that Mr. Disraeli, the future Parliamentary rival of Mr. Gladstone, took part, as a member of the House of Commons, in the discussion of the question under consideration. The following words show his attitude: "To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in favor of Protection I adhere. They sent to this House, and if I had relinquished them I should have relinquished my seat also." "It would be an unprofitable talk," writes Barnett Smith, "to unravel the many inconsistencies of Lord Beaconsfield's career; but with regard to this deliverance upon Protection, the curious in such matters may turn back to the records of 1842, when they will discover that at that time he was quite prepared to advocate measures of a Free Trade character. But we must pass on from this important question of the Corn Laws, with the angry controversy to which it gave rise. Sir Robert Peel brought forward his measure, and after lengthened debate in both Houses, it became law, and grain was admitted into English ports under the new tariff."

After all their success in carrying through the important Corn Law Repeal scheme, the ministry of Sir Robert Peel was doomed to fall upon an Irish question. The very day that brought their victory in the passage of the Corn Law Repeal Act in the House of Lords saw the defeat of the ministry in the House of Commons on their bill for the suppression of outrage in Ireland. Sir Robert Peel found himself in a minority of 73 and therefore tendered his resignation. It was accepted and Sir Robert Peel went out of office forever. Lord John Russell was sent for by the Queen, and he succeeded in forming a Whig Ministry.

Mr. Gladstone's return to the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel, as we have seen, cost him his seat in the House of Commons. It was not until the brief session of 1847, that he appeared again in Parliament. The Queen dissolved Parliament in person, July, 23d. The election succeeding turned in many instances upon ecclesiastical questions, and especially upon the Maynooth grant.

It was announced early in 1847 that one of the two members of the House of Commons for the University of Oxford intended to retire at the next general election. Mr. Canning had pronounced the representation of the university as the most coveted prize of public life, and Mr. Gladstone himself confessed that he "desired it with an almost passionate fondness." Mr. Gladstone, as a graduate of Oxford, was looked upon not only by his contemporaries, but by his seniors and those who came after him, with feelings of enthusiastic admiration. The feeling then was reciprocal, and he was proposed for the vacant seat. Sir R.N. Inglis was secure in his seat, and so the contest lay between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Round, who was of the ultra-Protestant and Tory school. The contest excited the keenest interest and was expected on all hands to be very close.

Mr. Gladstone in his address to the electors of his Alma Mater confessed that in the earlier part of his public life he had been an advocate for the exclusive support of the national religion of the state, but it had been in vain; the time was against him. He said: "I found that scarcely a year passed without the adoption of some fresh measure involving the national recognition and the national support of various forms of religion, and, in particular, that a recent and fresh provision had been made for the propagation from a public chair of Arian or Socinian doctrines. The question remaining for me was whether, aware of the opposition of the English people, I should set down as equal to nothing, in a matter primarily connected not with our own but with their priesthood, the wishes of the people of Ireland; and whether I should avail myself of the popular feeling in regard to the Roman Catholics for the purpose of enforcing against them a system which we had ceased by common consent to enforce against Arians—a system, above all, of which I must say that it never can be conformable to policy, to justice or even to decency, when it has become avowedly partial and one-sided in its application."

This address intensified the determination of those opposed to Mr. Gladstone to defeat him. A great portion of the press was, however, in his favor. Some of the journals that were enthusiastic for Mr. Gladstone were very bitter against Mr. Round. Mr. Gladstone's distinguished talent and industry were lauded, as well as his earnest attachment to the Church of England. He had, however, renounced the exclusiveness of his politico-ecclesiastical principles, and no longer importuned Parliament to ignore all forms of religion but those established by law, or which were exactly coincident with his own belief. "His election," declared one journal, "unlike that of Mr. Round, while it sends an important member to the House of Commons, will certainly be creditable, and may be valuable to the university; and we heartily hope that no negligence or hesitation among his supporters may impede his success." Even outside of church circles the election was regarded with great interest.

The nomination took place July 29th. After the usual ceremony, the voting commenced in convocation-house, which was densely crowded. So great was the pressure of the throng that men fainted and had to be carried out. Mr. Coleridge, afterward Lord Coleridge, was the secretary of Mr. Gladstone's committee. Distinguished men, among them Sir Robert Peel, his colleague in the Cabinet, came from a great distance to "plump" for Mr. Gladstone. The venerable Dr. Routh, then nearly ninety-two years old, came forth from his retirement at Magdalen College to vote for him. Mrs. Gladstone, according to Mr. Hope-Scott, was an indefatigable canvasser for her husband. At the close of the poll the vote stood: Inglis, 1700; Gladstone, 997; Round, 824. Of course Sir Robert Inglis, with his "prehistoric Toryism," stood at the head. To the supporters of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Round must be added 154 who were paired. Mr. Gladstone received a majority of 173 over his ultra-Protestant opponent. The total number of those polled exceeded that registered at any previous election, showing the intense and general interest in the result.

This period of Mr. Gladstone's life has been very properly styled by one of his biographers, as the transition period. "On one side the Conservative Free-trader clings fondly and tenaciously to the Toryism of his youth, on another, he is reaching out toward new realms of Liberal thought and action. He opposes marriage with a deceased wife's sister on theological and social grounds, asserting roundly that such marriage is 'contrary to the law of God, declared for three thousand years and upwards.' He deprecates the appointment of a Commission to enquire into the Universities, because it will deter intending benefactors from effecting their munificent intentions. He argues for a second chamber in Australian legislatures, citing, perhaps a little unfortunately, the constitutional example of contemporary France. In all these utterances it is not hard to read the influence of the traditions in which he was reared, or of the ecclesiastical community which he represents in Parliament.

"Yet even in the theological domain a tendency towards Liberalism shows itself. His hatred of Erastianism is evinced by his gallant but unsuccessful attempt to secure for the clergy and laity of each colonial diocese the power of self-government. Amid the indignant protests of his Tory allies, and in opposition to his own previous speech and vote, he vindicates the policy of admitting the Jews to Parliament. He defends the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Court of Rome; he supports the alteration of the parliamentary oath; and, though he will not abet an abstract attack on Church Rates, he contends that their maintainance involves a corresponding duty to provide accommodation in the church for the very poorest of the congregation.

"On the commercial side his Liberalism is rampant. With even fanatical faith he clings to Free Trade as the best guarantee for our national stability amid the crash of the dynasties and constitutions which went down in '48. He thunders against the insidious dangers of reciprocity. He desires, by reforming the laws which govern navigation, to make the ocean, 'that great highway of nations, as free to the ships that traverse its bosom as to the winds that sweep it.'

"And so the three years—1847, 1848, 1849—rolled by, full of stirring events in Europe and in England, in Church and in State, but marked by no special incidents in the life of Mr. Gladstone. For him these years were a period of mental growth, of transition, of development. A change was silently proceeding, which was not completed for twenty years, if, indeed, it has been completed yet. 'There have been,' he wrote in later days to Bishop Wilberforce, 'two great deaths, or transmigrations of spirit, in my political existence—one, very slow, the breaking of ties with my original party.' This was now in progress. The other will be narrated in due course."

One of the features of the general election of 1847 that excited the wildest popular comment was the election of Baron Rothschild for the City of London. There was nothing illegal in the election of a Jew, but he was virtually precluded from taking his seat in the House of Commons, because the law required every member to subscribe not only to the Christian religion, but to the Protestant Episcopal faith. To obviate this difficulty, Lord John Russell, soon after Parliament assembled, offered a resolution affirming the eligibility of Jews to all functions and offices to which Roman Catholics were admissible by law. Sir R.H. Inglis opposed the resolution and Mr. Gladstone, his colleague, supported it.

Mr. Gladstone inquired whether there were any grounds for the disqualification of the Jews which distinguished them from any other classes in the community. They contended for a "Christian Parliament, but the present measure did not make severance between politics and religion, it only amounted to a declaration that there was no necessity for excluding a Jew, as such, from an assembly in which every man felt sure that a vast and overwhelming majority of its members would always be Christian. It was said that by admitting a few Jews they would un-Christianize Parliament; that was true in word, but not in substance." He had no doubt that the majority of the members who composed it would always perform their obligations on the true faith of a Christian. It was too late to say that the measure was un-Christian, and that it would call down the vengeance of heaven. When he opposed the last law of the removal of Jewish disabilities, he foresaw that if he gave the Jew municipal, magisterial and executive functions, we could not refuse him legislative functions any longer. "The Jew was refused entrance into the House because he would then be a maker of the law; but who made the maker of the law? The constituencies; and into these constituencies had been admitted the Jews. Now were the constituencies Christian constituencies? If they were, was it probable that the Parliament would cease to be a Christian Parliament?"

Mr. Gladstone admitted the force of the prayer in Bishop Wilberforce's petition, that in view of this concession measures should be taken to give greater vigor to the Church, and thus operate to the prevention of an organic change in the relations between Church and State. In concluding his defence of Lord John Russell's resolution Mr. Gladstone expressed the opinion that if they admitted Jews into Parliament, prejudice might be awakened for awhile, but the good sense of the people would soon allay it, and members would have the consolation of knowing that in case of difficulty they had yielded to a sense of justice, and by so doing had not disparaged religion or lowered Christianity, but rather had elevated both in all reflecting and well-regulated minds. The logic of this speech could not be controverted, though Mr. Newdegate declared that Mr. Gladstone would never have gained his election for the University of Oxford had his sentiments on the Jewish question been then known. The resolution of Lord John Russell was carried by a large majority, whereupon he announced first a resolution, and then a bill, in accordance with its terms.

The year 1848 was a year of excitement and revolution. All Europe was in a state of agitation, and France by a new revolution presented another one of her national surprises. The news of a revolution in France caused the greatest perturbation throughout England, and disturbances in the capital of the country. Great demonstrations were made at Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross, March 6th, but the meetings assumed more of a burlesque than of a serious character. In Glasgow and other parts of the country there were serious riots. Shops were sacked, and the military was called out to quell the disturbance, which was not effected until the soldiers fired with fatal results upon the rioters. There were uprisings and mob violence also at Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle, but they were of a less formidable character. A Chartist meeting was held on Kennington Common, March 13th, but, though the meeting had been looked forward to with great apprehensions by all lovers of law and order, yet it passed off without the serious results anticipated.

Though great preparations were made in view of the demonstration, yet, fortunately it passed off without loss of life. The meeting however had furnished a pretext for the gathering of a lawless mob, although but few were politically concerned in it. It was deemed necessary, to provide against every emergency, so special constables in great numbers were sworn in previous to the meetings, and it is interesting to observe that amongst the citizens who came forward in London to enroll themselves as preservers of the peace of society were William Ewart Gladstone, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Derby, and Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Emperor of France.

The people were becoming dissatisfied with the government of the country, particularly with its financial measures. A deficiency of two million pounds appeared, and additional taxation would be necessary owing to the Caffre War. It was therefore proposed to continue the income tax for five years and increase it slightly. Owing to the distress in Ireland it was not proposed to extend the operation of this measure to that country. The property tax was defended on the same principles laid down by Mr. Pitt, and in 1842, by Sir Robert Peel. But this scheme was bitterly opposed and many attributed the depressed condition of the finances to free trade. Sir Robert Peel decided to support the proposed tax for three years. Mr. Disraeli desired the success of Sir Robert Peel's policy, and described himself as a "free-trader, but not a free-booter of the Manchester school;" and he dubbed the blue-book of the Import Duties Committee "the greatest work of imagination that the nineteenth century has produced." He said that the government, by acting upon it, and taking it for a guide, resembled a man smoking a cigar on a barrel of gunpowder.

This epigrammatic speech of Mr. Disraeli brought Mr. Gladstone to his feet. He said, by way of introduction, that he could not hope to sustain the lively interest created by the remarkable speech of his predecessor—a display to which he felt himself unequal—he would pass over the matters of a personal description touched upon by the honorable gentleman, and confine himself to defending the policy which had been assailed. Mr. Gladstone then demonstrated, by a series of elaborate statistics, the complete success of Sir Robert Peel's policy. He also said, that the confidence of the public would be greatly shaken by an adverse vote, and he alluded to the unsettled condition of affairs in the Cabinet. "I am sure," said Mr. Gladstone, "that this House of Commons will prove itself to be worthy of the Parliaments which preceded it, worthy of the Sovereign which it has been called to advise, and worthy of the people which it has been chosen to represent, by sustaining this nation, and enabling it to stand firm in the midst of the convulsions that shake European society; by doing all that pertains to us for the purpose of maintaining social order, the stability of trade, and the means of public employment; and by discharging our consciences, on our own part, under the difficult circumstances of the crisis, in the perfect trust that if we set a good example to the nations—for whose interests we are appointed to consult—they, too, will stand firm as they have in other times of almost desperate emergency; and that through their good sense, their moderation, and their attachment to the institutions of the country, we shall see these institutions still exist, a blessing and a benefit to prosperity, whatever alarms and whatever misfortunes may unfortunately befall other portions of civilized Europe."

"It was fortunate for the future interests of the country," says Dr. Smith, his biographer, "that the proposals of the government were at this juncture supported by a great majority of the House of Commons. In a moment of unreasoning panic there was some danger of the adoption of a reactionary policy—a step that would have lost to the country those blessings which it subsequently enjoyed as the outcome of Free Trade."

May 15, Mr. Labouchere, President of the Board of Trade, proposed a plan for the modification of the navigation laws. Reserving the coasting trade and fisheries of Great Britain and the Colonies, it was proposed "to throw open the whole navigation of the country, of every sort and description." But the Queen claimed the right of putting such restrictions as she saw fit upon the navigation of foreign countries, if those countries did not meet England on equal terms; and that each colony should be allowed to throw open its coasting trade to foreign countries. Mr. Gladstone made a lengthy speech, examining closely the operation of existing laws, and showing the necessity for their repeal. With regard to the power claimed by the Queen in Council, with a view to enforcing reciprocity, Mr. Gladstone said, "I confess it appears to me there is a great objection to conferring such a power as that which is proposed to be given to the Queen in Council." He contended also for a gradual change in the laws. The policy of excluding the coasting trade from the measure he also condemned. "It would have been much more frank to have offered to admit the Americans to our coasting trade if they would admit us to theirs." If England and America concurred in setting an example to the world, he hoped we should "live to see the ocean, that great highway of nations, as free to the ships that traverse its bosom as the winds that sweep it. England would then have achieved another triumph, and have made another powerful contribution to the prosperity of mankind." The bill was postponed until the following year.

During the session of 1848 Mr. Gladstone spoke upon the proposed grant of Vancouver's Island to the Hudson's Bay Company; and upon the Sugar Duties Bill; but the most important speech delivered by him at that time was upon a measure to legalize diplomatic relations with the Court of Rome. It was objected that thus recognizing the spiritual governor of Rome and of all the Roman Catholic population of the world, would neither conciliate the affections of the Protestants, nor satisfy the wishes of the Roman Catholics, who had denounced it strongly to the Pope.

Mr. Gladstone took broad and comprehensive views of the question. To some features of the Bill he was opposed, but was in favor of its principle. It was unfortunate as to time, owing to the condition of affairs in Italy. England must take one of two positions. If she declined political communication with the See of Rome, she had no right to complain of any steps which the Pope might take with respect to the administration of his own ecclesiastical affairs; but an act so directly in contravention of the laws of the land as the partitioning of the country into archbishoprics and bishoprics was a most unfortunate proceeding; wrong because it was generally and justly offensive to the feelings of the people of England, and totally unnecessary, as he believed, for Roman Catholic purposes, but also because it ill assorted with the grounds on which the Parliament was invited by the present bill to establish definite relations with the See of Rome. For one hundred years after the Reformation the Pope was actually in arms for the purpose of recovering by force his lost dominions in this country. It was only natural, therefore, that we should have prohibited relations with the See of Rome when it attacked the title of the Sovereign of these realms, but there was no such reason for continuing the prohibition at the present moment.

Those who have studied Mr. Gladstone's career carefully attest that this speech would have been impossible from his lips ten years before the time it was delivered; and early in the next session of Parliament he delivered another speech which furnishes us an example of the growth of his liberal views in matters of conscience. Lord John Russell proposes further relief upon the matter of oaths to be taken by members of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone said that the civil political claims of the Jew should not be barred, and he deprecated the tendency to degenerate formalism in oaths, but he was glad that the words, "on the true faith of a Christian" in respect to all Christian members of the House of Commons had been retained. He also, later in the session, favored correcting the enormous evils growing out of the Church rate system, with taxation of all the further support of the State Church. He did not believe in imposing an uncompensated burden upon any man. Every man contributing his quota was entitled to demand a free place in the house of his Maker. "But the centre and best parts of the Church were occupied by pews exclusively for the middle classes, while the laboring classes were jealously excluded from almost every part of light and hearing in the Churches, and were treated in a manner most painful to reflect upon."

When Mr. Labouchere re-introduced the ministerial bill for the repeal of the Navigation Laws, in the session of 1849, Mr. Gladstone supported generally the measure in a full and exhaustive speech. He favored the bill with certain modifications. The Marquis of Granby expressed fears at the consequences of the change proposed, and Mr. Gladstone answered him: "The noble Marquis," he observed, "desired to expel the vapours and exhalations that had been raised with regard to the principle of political economy, and which vapours and exhalations I find for the most part in the fears with which those changes are regarded. The noble Marquis consequently hoped that the Trojan horse would not be allowed to come within the walls of Parliament. But however applicable the figures may be to other plans, it does not, I submit, apply to the mode of proceeding I venture to recommend to the House, because we follow the precedent of what Mr. Huskisson did before us. Therefore more than one moiety of the Trojan horse has already got within the citadel—it has been there for twenty-five years, and yet what has proceeded from its bowels has only tended to augment the rate of increase in the progress of your shipping. Therefore, let us not be alarmed by vague and dreamy ratiocinations of evil, which had never been wanting on any occasion, and which never will be wanting so long as this is a free State, wherein every man can find full vent and scope for the expression, not only of his principles, but of his prejudices and his fears. Let us not be deterred by those apprehensions from giving a calm and serious examination to this question, connected as it is with the welfare of our country. Let us follow steadily the light of experience, and be convinced that He who preserved us during the past will also be sufficient to sustain us during all the dangers of the future."

Mr. Disraeli seized the opportunity to make a caustic speech, in which he fiercely attacked both Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Gladstone, and alluded sarcastically to their "great sacrifices," and said that the latter was about to give up that good development of the principle of reciprocity which the House had waited for with so much suspense. Mr. Gladstone replied, "I am perfectly satisfied to bear his sarcasm, good humoured and brilliant as it is, while I can appeal to his judgment as to whether the step I have taken was unbecoming in one who conscientiously differs with him on the freedom of trade, and has endeavoured to realize it; because, so far from its being the cause of the distress of the country, it has been, under the mercy of God, the most signal and effectual means of mitigating this distress, and accelerating the dawn of the day of returning prosperity."

Mr. Gladstone spoke also during the session upon the subject of Colonial Reform which came before the House on several occasions, and especially in connection with riots in Canada; and on a bill for the removal of legal restrictions against marriage with a deceased wife's sister. He opposed the latter measure upon theological, social, and moral grounds, and begged the House to repeat the almost entire sentiment of the country respecting the bill. To do otherwise would be to inflict upon the Church the misfortune of having anarchy introduced among its ministers. He hoped they would do all that in them lay to maintain the strictness of the obligations of marriage, and the purity of the hallowed sphere of domestic life. The bill was rejected.

In the Parliamentary session of 1850 one of the chief topics of discussion was the great depression of the agricultural interests of the country. The country was at peace, the revenues were in a good condition, foreign trade had increased, but the farmers still made loud complaints of the disastrous condition, which they attributed to free-trade measures, which they contended had affected the whole of the agricultural interests. Consequently, February 19th, Mr. Disraeli moved for a committee of the whole House to consider such a revision of the Poor Laws of the United Kingdom as might mitigate the distress of the agricultural classes. Some thought that this was a movement against free-trade, but Mr. Gladstone courted the fullest investigation, and seeing no danger in the motion, voted for it. However, the motion of Mr. Disraeli was lost.

Mr. Gladstone likewise favored the extension of the benefits of Constitutional government to certain of the colonies,—for example as set forth in the Australian Colonies Government Bill; and twice during the session he addressed the House on questions connected with slavery, and upon motion of Mr. Haywood for an inquiry into the state of the English and Irish universities, and the government unexpectedly gave their consent to the issuing of a Royal Commission for the purpose. Mr. Gladstone said that any person who might be deliberating with himself whether he would devote a portion of his substance for prosecuting the objects of learning, civilization and religion, would be checked by the prospect that at any given time, and under any given circumstances, a minister, who was the creature of a political majority, might institute a state inquiry into the mode in which the funds he might devise were administered. It was not wise to discourage eleemosynary establishments. It would be better for the Crown to see what could be done to improve the colleges by administering existing laws.

In reviewing the past ten years we exclaim, truly has the period from 1841 to 1850, in the political life of Mr. Gladstone, been called a memorable decade.

It was in the year 1850, as we have seen, that the Gladstones were plunged into domestic sorrow by the death of their little daughter, Catharine Jessy; and it was this same year that brought to Mr. Gladstone another grief from a very different source. This second bereavement was caused by the withdrawal of two of his oldest and most intimate friends, the Archdeacon of Chichester and Mr. J.R. Hope, from the Protestant Episcopal Church of England and their union with the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Hope, who became Hope-Scott on succeeding to the estate of Abbotsford, was the gentleman who helped Mr. Gladstone in getting through the press his book on Church and State, revising, correcting and reading proof. The Archdeacon, afterwards Cardinal Manning, had, from his undergraduate days, exercised a powerful influence over his contemporaries. He was gifted with maturity of intellect and character, had great shrewdness, much tenacity of will, a cogent, attractive style, combined with an impressive air of authority, to which the natural advantages of person and bearing added force. Besides having these qualifications for leadership, he had fervid devotion, enlarged acquaintance with life and men, and an "unequalled gift of administration;" though a priest, he was essentially a statesman, and had at one time contemplated a political career. He was Mr. Gladstone's most trusted counsellor and most intimate friend.

The cause, or rather occasion for these secessions from the Church of England to the Church of Rome, is thus related: "An Evangelical clergyman, the Rev. G.C. Gorham, had been presented to a living in the diocese of Exeter; and that truly formidable prelate, Bishop Phillpotts, refused to institute him, alleging that he held heterodox views on the subject of Holy Baptism. After complicated litigation, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided, on March 8, 1850, that the doctrine held by the incriminated clergyman was not such as to bar him from preferment in the Church of England. This decision naturally created great commotion in the Church. Men's minds were rudely shaken. The orthodoxy of the Church of England seemed to be jeopardized, and the supremacy of the Privy Council was in a matter touching religious doctrine felt to be an intolerable burden."

Mr. Gladstone, as well as others, was profoundly agitated by these events, and June 4th he expressed his views in a letter to Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London. The theme of his letter was, "The Royal Supremacy, viewed in the light of Reason, History and the Constitution." He contended that the Royal Supremacy, as settled at the Reformation, was not inconsistent with the spiritual life and inherent jurisdiction of the Church, but the recent establishment of the Privy Council as the ultimate court of appeal in religious causes was "an injurious and even dangerous departure from the Reformation settlement."

In this letter Mr. Gladstone said, in summing up: "I find it no part of my duty, my lord, to idolize the Bishops of England and Wales, or to place my conscience in their keeping. I do not presume or dare to speculate upon their particular decisions; but I say that, acting jointly, publicly, solemnly, responsibly, they are the best and most natural organs of the judicial office of the Church in matters of heresy, and, according to reason, history and the constitution, in that subject-matter the fittest and safest counsellors of the Crown."

But this view regarding the Church of England did not suit some minds, and among them the two friends with whom Mr. Gladstone had, up to this time, acted in religious matters. These troubles in the Church so powerfully affected them that they withdrew.

The following quotation shows Mr. Gladstone's firmness in regard to his own choice of the Protestant Christianity over and above Catholicism, In a letter, written in 1873, to Mrs. Maxwell-Scott, of Abbotsford, the daughter of his friend Hope, he thus writes of an interview had with her father: "It must have been about this time that I had another conversation with him about religion, of which, again, I exactly recollect the spot. Regarding (forgive me) the adoption of the Roman religion by members of the Church of England as nearly the greatest calamity that could befall Christian faith in this country, I rapidly became alarmed when these changes began; and very long before the great luminary, Dr. Newman, drew after him, it may well be said, 'the third part of the stars of Heaven.' This alarm I naturally and freely expressed to the man upon whom I most relied, your father."



CHAPTER VIII

THE NEAPOLITAN PRISONS

In considering Mr. Gladstone's exposure of the cruelties practiced in the prisons of Naples, we are confronted with his attitude in the House of Commons just before, in a case where the same principles seemed to be involved, and in which Mr. Gladstone took the directly opposite course. We refer to the Don Pacifico case. Both were at first merely personal questions, but finally became international. Mr. Gladstone to many appeared to take an inconsistent course in these seemingly similar cases, in that while opposing national intervention in the affairs of Don Pacifico, he tried to stir up all Europe for the relief of the sufferers in the Neapolitan prisons. "It is not a little remarkable that the statesman who had so lately and so vigorously denounced the 'vain conception that we, forsooth, have a mission to be the censors of vice and folly, of abuse and imperfection, among the other countries of the world,' should now have found himself irresistibly impelled by conscience and humanity to undertake a signal and effective crusade against the domestic administration of a friendly power."

The most memorable debate in the new chamber of the House of Commons, which was first occupied in 1850, was that associated with the name of Don Pacifico. It is however conceded that the circumstances from which it all proceeded were comparatively trivial in the extreme. Don Pacifico was a Maltese Jew and a British subject, dwelling at Athens. He had made himself distasteful to the people of Athens, and consequently his house was destroyed and robbed by a mob, April 4, 1847. He appealed to the government at Athens for redress, demanding over $150,000 indemnity for the loss of his property, among which "a peculiarly sumptuous bedstead figured largely." Don Pacifico's claim was unheeded, probably because it was exorbitant and the Greek government was poor. Lord Palmerston was then the Foreign Secretary of the English Government. He was rash and independent in his Foreign policy, and often acted, as the Queen complained, without consultation and without the authority of the Sovereign.

The Foreign Secretary had had other quarrels with the Government at Athens. Land belonging to an English resident in Athens had been seized without sufficient compensation; Ionian subjects of the English Crown had suffered hardships at the hands of the Greek authorities, and an English Midshipman had been arrested by mistake. Lord Palmerston looked upon these incidents, slight as they were in themselves, as indicative of a plot on the part of the French Minister against the English, and especially as the Greek Government was so dilatory in satisfying the English claims. "This was enough. The outrage on Don Pacifico's bedstead remained the head and front of Greek offending, but Lord Palmerston included all the other slight blunders and delays of justice in one sweeping indictment; made the private claims into a national demand, and peremptorily informed the Greek Government that they must pay what was demanded of them within a given time. The Government hesitated, and the British fleet was ordered to the Piraeus, and seized all the Greek vessels which were found in the waters. Russia and France took umbrage at this high-handed proceeding and championed Greece. Lord Palmerston informed them it was none of their business and stood firm. The French Ambassador was withdrawn from London, and for awhile the peace of Europe was menaced." The execution of the orders of Lord Palmerston was left with Admiral Sir William Parker, who was first to proceed to Athens with the English fleet, and failing to obtain satisfaction was to blockade the Piraeus, which instructions he faithfully obeyed.

The debate began in Parliament June 24, 1850. The stability of the Whig administration, then in power, depended upon the results. In the House of Lords, Lord Stanley moved a resolution, which was carried, expressing regret that "various claims against the Greek Government, doubtful in point of justice and exaggerated in amount, have been enforced by coercive measures, directed against the commerce and people of Greece, and calculated to endanger the continuance of our friendly relations with foreign powers." A counter-resolution was necessary in the House of Commons to offset the action of the Lords, so a Radical, Mr. Roebuck, much to the surprise of many, came to the defense of the Government and offered the following motion, which was carried: "That the principles which have hitherto regulated the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government are such as were required to preserve untarnished the honor and dignity of this country, and, in times of unexampled difficulty, the best calculated to maintain peace between England and the various nations of the world."

The debate which followed, and which was prolonged over four nights, was marked on both sides by speeches of unusual oratorical power and brilliancy. The speeches of Lord Palmerston, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Cockburn, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone were pronounced as remarkable orations. Sir Robert Peel made a powerful speech against the Ministers, which was made memorable not only for its eloquence, but because it was his last. Lord Palmerston defended himself vigorously in a speech of five hours' duration. "He spoke," said Mr. Gladstone, "from the dusk of one day to the dawn of the next." He defended his policy at every point. In every step taken he had been influenced by the sole desire that the meanest, the poorest, even the most disreputable subject of the English Crown should be defended by the whole might of England against foreign oppression. He reminded them of all that was implied in the Roman boast, Civis Romanus sum, and urged the House to make it clear that a British subject, in whatever land he might be, should feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England could protect him. This could not be resisted. Civis Romanus sum settled the question.

Mr. Gladstone's reply was a masterpiece. It was exhaustive and trenchant, and produced a great effect. He first spoke upon the position of the Government and the constitutional doctrines which they had laid down in regard to it, and then severely condemned the conduct of the Premier for being so heedless of the censure of the House of Lords and in trying to shield himself behind the precedents which are in reality no precedents at all. With reference to the Greek question, he repudiated precedents which involved the conduct of strong countries against weak ones. The Greek Government had put no impediment in the way of arbitration. Instead of trusting and trying the tribunals of the country and employing diplomatic agency simply as a supplemental resource, Lord Palmerston had interspersed authority of foreign power, in contravention both of the particular stipulations of the treaty in force between Greece and England and of the general principles of the law of nations. He had thus set the mischievous example of abandoning the methods of law and order, and resorted to those of force. Non-interference had been laid down as the basis of our conduct towards other nations, but the policy of Lord Palmerston had been characterized by a spirit of active interference.

Mr. Gladstone's words were in part as follows: "Does he [Lord Palmerston] make the claim for us [the English] that we are to be lifted upon a platform high above the standing-ground of all other nations?... It is indeed too clear ... that he adopts, in part, the vain conception that we, forsooth, have a mission to be the censors of vice and folly, of abuse and imperfection among the other countries of the world; that we are to be the universal schoolmasters, and that all those who hesitate to recognize our office can be governed only by prejudice or personal animosity, and shall have the blind war of diplomacy forthwith declared against them."

Again: "Let us recognize, and recognize with frankness, the equality of the weak with the strong; the principles of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong to our fellow-subjects, resident in Greece, let us do as we would be done by, and let us pay all respect to a feeble State and to the infancy of free institutions.... Let us refrain from all gratuitous and arbitrary meddling in the internal concerns of other States, even as we should resent the same interference if it were attempted to be practiced toward ourselves."

In this address Mr. Gladstone evinces his inclination to appeal to the higher and nobler nature of man, to the principles of brotherhood among nations, to the law of God and nature, and to ask as a test of the foreign policy of the government, not whether it is striking, or brilliant, or successful, but whether it is right.

This speech of Mr. Gladstone's was recognized as the finest he had delivered in Parliament, and its power was acknowledged by both sides of the House, by political opponent and friend. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, then a member of the House, referring in a speech the following evening to Mr. Gladstone and his remarkable speech, uttered these words: "I suppose we are now to consider him as the representative of Lord Stanley in the House—Gladstone Vice Disraeli, am I to say, resigned or superseded?" The government was sustained.

We have already stated that it was during this memorable debate that Sir Robert Peel made his last speech.—On the following day, 29th of June, 1850, Sir Robert called at Buckingham Palace for the purpose of leaving his card. On proceeding up Constitution Hill on horse back he met one of Lady Dover's daughters, and exchanged salutations. Immediately afterwards his horse became restive and shying towards the rails of the Green Park, threw Sir Robert sideways on his left shoulder. Medical aid was at hand and was at once administered. Sir Robert groaned when lifted and when asked whether he was much hurt replied, "Yes, very much." He was conveyed home where the meeting with his family was very affecting, and he swooned in the arms of his physician. He was placed upon a sofa in the dining-room from which he never moved. His sufferings were so acute that a minute examination of his injuries could not be made. For two or three days he lingered and then died, July 2d. An examination made after death revealed the fact that the fifth rib on the left side was fractured, the broken rib pressing on the lung, producing effusion and pulmonary engorgement. This was probably the seat of the mortal injury, and was where Sir Robert complained of the greatest pain.

The news of Sir Robert's death produced a profound sensation throughout the land. Great and universal were the tokens of respect and grief. There was but one feeling,—that England had lost one of her most illustrious statesmen. Even those who had been in opposition to his views, alluded to the great loss the nation had sustained and paid a fitting tribute to his memory. The House of Commons, on motion of Mr. Hume July 3d, at once adjourned. In the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington and Lord Brougham spoke in appreciative words of the departed statesman. "Such was the leader whom Mr. Gladstone had faithfully followed for many years."

Supporting Mr. Hume's motion, Mr. Gladstone said: "I am quite sure that every heart is much too full to allow us, at a period so early, to enter upon a consideration of the amount of that calamity with which the country has been visited in his, I must even now say, premature death; for though he has died full of years and full of honors, yet it is a death which our human eyes will regard as premature; because we had fondly hoped that, in whatever position he was placed, by the weight of his character, by the splendor of his talents, by the purity of his virtues, he would still have been spared to render to his countrymen the most essential services. I will only, sir, quote those most touching and feeling lines which were applied by one of the greatest poets of this country to the memory of a man great indeed, but yet not greater than Sir Robert Peel:"

'Now is the stately column broke, The beacon light is quenched in smoke; The trumpet's silver voice is still; The warder silent on the hill.'

"Sir, I will add no more—in saying this I have, perhaps, said too much. It might have been better had I confined myself to seconding the motion. I am sure the tribute of respect which we now offer will be all the more valuable from the silence with which the motion is received, and which I well know has not arisen from the want, but from the excess of feeling on the part of members of this House."

Upon the death of Sir Robert Peel began the disintegration of the party distinguished by his name—Peelites. Some of its members united with the Conservatives, and others, such as Sir James Graham, Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Gladstone held themselves aloof from both Whigs and Tories. Conservative traditions still exercised considerable influence over them, but they could not join them, because they were already surrendering to strong liberal tendencies. It is said that Mr. Gladstone at this time, and for a decade thereafter, until the death of Sir James Graham, was greatly indebted to this statesman, not only for the growth of his liberal principles, but for his development as a practical statesman. Sir James wielded great influence over his contemporaries generally, because of his great knowledge of Parliamentary tactics, and the fact that he was the best educated and most thoroughly accomplished statesman of his age. "If he could be prevailed upon to speak in the course of a great debate, his speech was worth fifty votes," so great was his influence and power. "However great may have been the indebtedness of Mr. Gladstone to Sir James Graham, if the former had not been possessed of far wider sympathies—to say nothing of superior special intellectual qualities—than his political mentor, he never could have conceived and executed those important legislative acts for which his name will now chiefly be remembered."

The other case occupying the attention of Parliament, to which we have alluded, we must now consider—Mr. Gladstone and the prisons of Naples. Owing to the illness of one of his children, for whom a southern climate was recommended, Mr. Gladstone spent several months of the Winter of 1850-1 in Naples. His brief visit to this city on a purely domestic mission was destined to assume an international importance. It came to his knowledge that a large number of the citizens of Naples, who had been members of the Chamber of Deputies, an actual majority of the representatives of the people, had been exiled or imprisoned by King Ferdinand, because they formed the opposition party to the government, and that between twenty and thirty thousand of that monarch's subjects had been cast into prison on the charge of political disaffection. The sympathies of Mr. Gladstone were at once enlisted in behalf of the oppressed Neapolitans. At first Mr. Gladstone looked at the matter only from a humanitarian and not from a political aspect, and it was only upon the former ground that he felt called and impelled to attempt the redress of the wrongs which were a scandal to the name of civilisation in Europe. And it was not long before England and the Continent were aroused by his denunciations of the Neapolitan system of government. Mr. Gladstone first carefully ascertained the truth of the statements made to him in order to attest their accuracy, and then published two letters on the subject addressed to the Earl of Aberdeen. These letters were soon followed by a third. In the first of these letters, dated April 7, 1851, he brings an elaborate, detailed and horrible indictment against the rulers of Naples, especially as regards their prisons and the treatment of persons confined in them for political offenses. He disclaimed any thought of having gone to Naples for the purpose of political criticism or censorship, to look for defects in the administration of the government, or to hear the grievances of the people, or to propagate ideas belonging to another country. But after a residence of three or four months in their city he had returned home with a deep feeling of the duty upon him to make some endeavor to mitigate the horrors in the midst of which the government of Naples was carried on.

There were chiefly three reasons that led him to adopt the present course: "First, that the present practices of the Government of Naples, in reference to real or supposed political offenders, are an outrage upon religion, upon civilization, upon humanity and upon decency. Secondly, that these practices are certainly, and even rapidly, doing the work of Republicanism in that country—a political creed which has little natural or habitual root in the character of the people. Thirdly, that as a member of the Conservative party in one of the great family of European nations, I am compelled to remember that party stands in virtual and real, though perhaps unconscious alliance with all the established Governments of Europe as such; and that, according to the measure of its influence, they suffer more or less of moral detriment from its reverses, and derive strength and encouragement from its successes."

He passed over the consideration of the all important question whether the actual Government of the Two Sicilies was one with or without a title, one of law or one of force, and came to the real question at issue. His charge against the Neapolitan Government was not one of mere imperfection, not corruption in low quarters, not occasional severity, but that of incessant, systematic, deliberate violation of the law by the power appointed to watch over and maintain it.

Mr. Gladstone, with impassionate language, thus formulates his fearful indictment: "It is such violation of human and written law as this, carried on for the purpose of violating every other law, unwritten and eternal, human and divine; it is the wholesale persecution of virtue, when united with intelligence, operating upon such a scale that entire classes may with truth be said to be its object, so that the Government is in bitter and cruel, as well as utterly illegal hostility to whatever in the nation really lives and moves, and forms the mainspring of practical progress and improvement; it is the awful profanation of public religion, by its notorious alliance in the governing powers with the violation of every moral rule under the stimulants of fear and vengeance; it is the perfect prostitution of the judicial office which has made it, under veils only too threadbare and transparent, the degraded recipient of the vilest and clumsiest forgeries, got up wilfully and deliberately, by the immediate advisers of the Crown, for the purpose of destroying the peace, the freedom, aye, and even, if not by capital sentences, the life of men among the most virtuous, upright, intelligent, distinguished and refined of the whole community; it is the savage and cowardly system of moral as well as in a lower degree of physical torture, through which the sentences obtained from the debased courts of justice are carried into effect.

"The effect of all this is a total inversion of all the moral and social ideas. Law, instead of being respected, is odious. Force and not affection is the foundation of government. There is no association, but a violent antagonism between the idea of freedom and that of order. The governing power, which teaches of itself that it is the image of God upon earth, is clothed in the view of the overwhelming majority of the thinking public with all the vices for its attributes. I have seen and heard the strong expression used, 'This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government.'"

It was not merely the large numbers imprisoned unjustly, to which public attention was directed, that called for righteous indignation and made Mr. Gladstone's words create such a sensation in Europe, but the mode of procedure was arbitrary in the extreme. The law of Naples required that personal liberty should be inviolable, except under warrant from a court of justice. Yet in utter disregard of this law the authorities watched the people, paid domiciliary visits, ransacked houses, seized papers and effects, and tore up floors at pleasure under pretense of searching for arms, imprisoned men by the score, by the hundred, by the thousand without any warrant whatever, sometimes without even any written authority whatever, or anything beyond the word of a policeman, constantly without any statement whatever of the nature of the offense. Charges were fabricated to get rid of inconvenient persons. Perjury and forgery were resorted to in order to establish charges, and the whole mode of conducting trials was a burlesque of justice.

He thus describes the dungeons of Naples, in which some of the prisoners were confined for their political opinions: "The prisons of Naples, as is well known, are another name for the extreme of filth and horror. I have really seen something of them, but not the worst. This I have seen, my Lord: the official doctors not going to the sick prisoners, but the sick prisoners, men almost with death on their faces, toiling up stairs to them at that charnel-house of the Vicaria, because the lower regions of such a palace of darkness are too foul and loathsome to allow it to be expected that professional men should consent to earn bread by entering them." Of some of those sufferers Mr. Gladstone speaks particularly. He names Pironte, formerly a judge, Baron Porcari, and Carlo Poerio, a distinguished patriot. The latter he specially speaks of as a refined and accomplished gentleman, a copious and elegant speaker, a respected and blameless character, yet he had been arrested and condemned for treason. Mr. Gladstone says: "The condemnation of such a man for treason is a proceeding just as conformable to the laws of truth, justice, decency, and fair play, and to the common sense of the community—in fact, just as great and gross an outrage on them all—as would be a like condemnation in this country of any of our best known public men—Lord John Russell, or Lord Lansdowne, or Sir James Graham, or yourself."

There was no name dearer to Englishmen than that of Poerio to his Neapolitan fellow-countrymen. Poerio was tried and condemned on the sole accusation of a worthless character named Jerrolino. He would have been acquitted nevertheless, by a division of four to five of his judges, had not Navarro (who sat as a judge while directly concerned in the charge against the prisoner), by the distinct use of intimidation, procured the number necessary for a sentence. A statement is furnished on the authority of an eye-witness, as to the inhumanity with which invalid prisoners were treated by the Grand Criminal Court of Naples; and Mr. Gladstone minutely describes the manner of the imprisonment of Poerio and six of his incarcerated associates. Each prisoner bore a weight of chain amounting to thirty-two pounds and for no purpose whatever were these chains undone. All the prisoners were confined, night and day, in a small room, which may be described as amongst the closest of dungeons; but Poerio was after this condemned to a still lower depth of calamity and suffering. "Never before have I conversed," says Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Poerio, "and never probably shall I converse again, with a cultivated and accomplished gentleman, of whose innocence, obedience to law, and love of his country, I was as firmly and as rationally assured as your lordship's or that of any other man of the very highest character, whilst he stood before me, amidst surrounding felons, and clad in the vile uniform of guilt and shame." But he is now gone where he will scarcely have the opportunity even of such conversation. I cannot honestly suppress my conviction that the object in the case of Poerio, as a man of mental power sufficient to be feared, is to obtain the scaffold's aim by means more cruel than the scaffold, and without the outcry which the scaffold would create.

Mr. Gladstone said that it was time for the veil to be lifted from scenes more fit for hell than earth, or that some considerable mitigation should be voluntarily adopted. This letter was published in 1851—the year of the great Exposition in London—and a copy was sent to the representative of the Queen in every court of Europe. Its publication caused a wide-spread indignation in England, a great sensation abroad, and profoundly agitated the court of Naples.

In the English Parliament Sir De Lacy Evans put the following question to the Foreign Secretary: "If the British Minister at the court of Naples had been instructed to employ his good offices in the cause of humanity, for the diminution of these lamentable severities, and with what result?" In reply to this question Lord Palmerston accepted and adopted Mr. Gladstone's statement, which had been confirmed from other quarters, expressing keen sympathy and humanitarian feeling with the cause which he had espoused, but Lord Palmerston pointed out that it was impossible to do anything in a matter which related entirely to the domestic affairs of the Government at Naples. He said: "Instead of confining himself to those amusements that abound in Naples, instead of diving into volcanoes, and exploring excavated cities, we see him going into courts of justice, visiting prisons, descending into dungeons, and examining great numbers of the cases of unfortunate victims of illegality and injustice, with the view afterwards to enlist public opinion in the endeavor to remedy those abuses." This announcement by the Foreign Secretary was warmly applauded by the House. "A few days afterwards Lord Palmerston was requested by Prince Castelcicala to forward the reply of the Neapolitan Government to the different European courts to which Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet had been sent. His lordship, with his wonted courage and independent spirit, replied that he 'must decline being accessory to the circulation of a pamphlet which, in my opinion, does no credit to its writer, or the Government which he defends, or to the political party of which he professes to be the champion.' He also informed the Prince that information received from other sources led him to the conclusion that Mr. Gladstone had by no means overstated the various evils which he had described; and he [Lord Palmerston] regretted that the Neapolitan Government had not set to work earnestly and effectually to correct the manifold and grave abuses which clearly existed."

The second paper of Mr. Gladstone upon the same subject was a sequel to the first. His wish was that everything possible should be done first in the way of private representation and remonstrance, and he did not regret the course he had taken, though it entailed devious delays. In answer to the natural inquiry why he should simply appear in his personal capacity through the press, instead of inviting to the grave and painful question the attention of the House of Commons, of which he was a member, he said, that he had advisedly abstained from mixing up his statements with any British agency or influences which were official, diplomatic, or political. The claims and interests which he had in view were either wholly null and valueless, or they were broad as the extension of the human race and long-lived as its duration.

As to his general charges he had nothing to retract. His representations had not been too strongly stated, for the most disgraceful circumstances were those which rested upon public notoriety, or upon his own personal knowledge. It had been stated that he had overestimated the number of prisoners, and he would give the Neapolitan Government the full benefit of any correction. But the number of political prisoners in itself, was a secondary feature of the case, for "if they were fairly and legally arrested, fairly and legally treated before trial—fairly and legally tried, that was the main matter. For the honor of human nature men would at first receive some statements with incredulity. Men ought to be slow to believe that such things could happen, and happen in a Christian country, the seat of almost the oldest European civilization." But those thus disposed in the beginning he hoped would not close their minds to the reception of the truth, however painful to believe. The general probability of his statements could not, unfortunately be gainsaid.

Many replies were made to Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet that were violent and abusive. They appeared not only in Naples, Turin, and Paris, but even in London.

All these answers, were in truth no replies at all, for they did not disprove the facts. These professed corrections of Mr. Gladstone's statements did not touch the real basis of the question. It was necessary to say something if possible by way of defense, or justice, which had as yet not been done.

There was one reply that was put forth that Mr. Gladstone felt demanded some attention, namely, the official answer of the Neapolitan Government to his charges. To this he replied in a letter, in 1852. In his reply he placed, point by point, the answers in the scales along with his own accusations. There was in the Neapolitan answers to the letters really a tacit admission of the accuracy of nine-tenths of Mr. Gladstone's statements, Mr. Gladstone enumerated the few retractions which he had to make, which were five in number. That the prisoner, Settembrine, had not been tortured and confined to double chains for life, as was currently reported and believed; that six judges had been dismissed at Reggio upon presuming to acquit a batch of political prisoners, required modifying to three; that seventeen invalids had not been massacred in the prison of Procida during a revolt, as stated; and that certain prisoners alleged to have been still incarcerated after acquittal had been released after the lapse of two days. These were all the modifications he had to make in his previous statements. And as to the long list of his grave accusations, not one of them rested upon hearsay. He pointed out how small and insignificant a fraction of error had found its way into his papers. He fearlessly reasserted that agonizing corporal punishment was inflicted by the officials in Neapolitan prisons, and that without judicial authority. As to Settembrine, the political prisoner named, he was incarcerated in a small room with eight other prisoners, one of whom boasted that he had murdered, at various times, thirty-five persons. Several of his victims had been his prison companions, and "the murders of this Ergastolo" had exceeded fifty in a single year. It was true that at the massacre at Procida the sick had not been slain in the prisons, yet prisoners who hid under beds were dragged forth and shot in cold blood by the soldiery after order had been restored. The work of slaughter had been twice renewed, and two officers received promotion or honors for that abominable enormity.

Mr. Gladstone found in the reply of the Government of Naples no reason to retract his damaging statements in reference to Neapolitan inhumanity, on the other hand he discovered grounds for emphasizing his accusations. And as to his statement regarding the number of the sufferers from Neapolitan injustice and cruelty, he defended at length his statement as to the enormous number of the prisoners.

It was clear to all candid minds that all the replies had failed to prove him wrong in any of his substantial changes, which retained their full force. "The arrow has shot deep into the mark," observed Mr. Gladstone, "and cannot be dislodged. But I have sought, in once more entering the field, not only to sum up the state of the facts in the manner nearest to exactitude, but likewise to close the case as I began it, presenting it from first to last in the light of a matter which is not primarily or mainly political, which is better kept apart from Parliamentary discussion, which has no connection whatever with any peculiar idea or separate object or interest of England, but which appertains to the sphere of humanity at large, and well deserves the consideration of every man who feels a concern for the well-being of his race, in its bearings on that well-being; on the elementary demands of individual domestic happiness; on the permanent maintenance of public order; on the stability of thrones; on the solution of that great problem, which, day and night, in its innumerable forms must haunt the reflections of every statesman, both here and elsewhere, how to harmonize the old with the new conditions of society, and to mitigate the increasing stress of time and change upon what remains of this ancient and venerable fabric of the traditional civilization of Europe."

Mr. Gladstone also said, that the question had been asked, whether a government "could be induced to change its policy, because some individual or other had by lying accusations held it up to the hatred of mankind," yet he had the satisfaction of knowing that upon the challenge of a mere individual, the government of Naples had been compelled to plead before the tribunal of general opinion, and to admit the jurisdiction of that tribunal. It was to public sentiment that the Neapolitan Government was paying deference when it resolved on the manly course of a judicial reply; and he hoped that further deference would be paid to that public sentiment in the complete reform of its departments and the whole future management of its affairs.

After a consideration of the political position of the throne of the Two Sicilies, in connection with its dominions on the mainland, Mr. Gladstone thus concluded his examination of the official reply of the Neapolitan Government: "These pages have been written in the hope that, by thus making, through the press, rather than in another mode, that rejoinder to the Neapolitan reply which was doubtless due from me, I might still, as far as depended on me, keep the question on its true ground, as one not of politics but of morality, and not of England but of Christendom and of mankind. Again I express the hope that this may be my closing word. I express the hope that it may not become a hard necessity to keep this controversy alive until it reaches its one only possible issue, which no power of man can permanently intercept. I express the hope that while there is time, while there is quiet, while dignity may yet be saved in showing mercy, and in the blessed work of restoring Justice to her seat, the Government of Naples may set its hand in earnest to the work of real and searching, however quiet and unostentatious, reform; that it may not become unavoidable to reiterate these appeals from the hand of power to the one common heart of mankind; to produce these painful documents, those harrowing descriptions, which might be supplied in rank abundance, of which I have scarcely given the faintest idea or sketch, and which, if laid from time to time before the world, would bear down like a deluge every effort at apology or palliation, and would cause all that has recently been made known to be forgotten and eclipsed in deeper horrors yet; lest the strength of offended and indignant humanity should rise up as a giant refreshed with wine, and, while sweeping away these abominations from the eye of Heaven, should sweep away along with them things pure and honest, ancient, venerable, salutary to mankind, crowned with the glories of the past and still capable of bearing future fruit."

The original purpose of these letters, though at first not gained, was unmistakable in the subsequent revolution which created a regenerated, free and united Italy. The moral influence of such an exposure was incalculable and eventually irresistible. The great Italian patriot and liberator of Italy, General Garibaldi, was known to say that Mr. Gladstone's protest "sounded the first trumpet call of Italian liberty." If France and England had unitedly protested against the Neapolitan abuse of power and violation of law, such a protest would have been heard and redress granted, but such joint action was not taken. The letters reached the fourteenth edition and in this edition Mr. Gladstone said that by a royal decree, issued December 27, 1858, ninety-one political prisoners had their punishment commuted into perpetual exile from the kingdom of the two Sicilies, but that a Ministerial order of January 9, 1859, directed that they should be conveyed to America; that of these ninety-one persons no less than fourteen had died long before in dungeons, and that only sixty-six of them embarked January 16, 1859, and were taken to Cadiz, where they were shipped on board an American sailing vessel, which was to have carried them to New York, but eventually landed them at Cork. "Eleven men were kept behind, either because it was afterwards thought advisable not to release them, as in the case of Longo and Delli Franci, two artillery officers, who were still in the dungeons of Gaeta. Whenever the prisoners were too sick to be moved, as was the case with Pironti, who was paralytic; or because they were in some provincial dungeons too remote from Naples." Such was the fate of some of the patriots officially liberated by Ferdinand's successor, Francis II.

The charges of Mr. Gladstone against the Neapolitan Government met with confirmation from another source nearer home. In 1851 Mr. Gladstone translated and published Farini's important and bulky work, entitled, "The Roman State, from 1815 to 1850." The author, Farini, addressed a note to his translator, in which he said that he had dedicated the concluding volume of his work to Mr. Gladstone, who, by his love of Italian letters, and by his deeds of Italian charity, had established a relationship with Italy in the spirit of those great Italian writers who had been their masters in eloquence, in civil philosophy and in national virtue, from Dante and Macchivelli down to Alfieri and Gioberti. Signor Farini endorsed the charges made by Mr. Gladstone against the Neapolitan Government. He wrote: "The scandalous trials for high treason still continue at Naples; accusers, examiners, judges, false witnesses, all are bought; the prisons, those tombs of the living, are full; two thousand citizens of all ranks and conditions are already condemned to the dungeons, as many to confinement, double that number to exile; the majority guilty of no crime but that of having believed in the oaths made by Ferdinand II. But, in truth, nothing more was needed to press home the indictment."

At the period of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Naples there was a growing sentiment throughout Italy for Italian independence and union. The infamous measures adopted by the King of Naples to repress in his own dominions every aspiration after freedom, only succeeded in making the people more determined and the liberty for which they sighed surer in the end. His system of misgovernment went on for a few years longer and was the promoting cause of the revolutionary movements which continually disturbed the whole Italian peninsula. A conference was held in Paris upon the Italian question, which failed to accomplish anything, against which failure Count Cavour addressed a protest to the French and British Governments in April, 1856. Afterwards the King of Naples and his Ministers were remonstrated with, but this was of no avail, only drawing forth an assertion that the sovereign had the right to deal with his own subjects as he pleased. France and England finally withdrew their representatives from Naples, and the storm soon afterwards broke. The brilliant success of Garibaldi in 1860 filled Francis II with terror. He was now, like all evil men, ready to make the most lavish promises of liberal reform to escape the consequences of his misdeeds. However, his repentance came too late. The victorious Garibaldi issued a decree ultimately, stating that the Two Sicilies, which had been redeemed by Italian blood, and which had freely elected him their dictator, formed an integral part of one and indivisable Italy, under the constitutional King Victor Emmanuel and his descendants. Francis II was dethroned and expelled from his kingdom by the legitimate fruits of his own hateful policy and that of his predecessor. "Count Cavour was the brain as Garibaldi was the hand of that mighty movement which resulted in the unity of Italy," says an English writer, "but as Englishmen we may take pride in the fact that not the least among the precipitating causes of this movement was the fearless exposure by Mr. Gladstone of the cruelties and tyrannies of the Neapolitan Government."



CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST BUDGET

The precise date at which Mr. Gladstone became a Liberal cannot be determined, but during the Parliamentary sessions of 1851 and 1852 he became finally alienated from the Conservative party, although he did not enter the ranks of the Liberals for some years afterward. He himself stated that so late as 1851 he had not formally left the Tory party, nevertheless his advance towards Liberalism is very pronounced at this period. It is well for us to trace the important events of these two sessions, for they also lead up to the brilliant financial measures of 1853, which caused Mr. Gladstone's name to be classed with those of Pitt and Peel. Mr. Gladstone's trusted leader was dead, and he was gradually coming forward to take the place in debate of the fallen statesman.

When Mr. Gladstone returned home from Italy he found England convulsed over renewed papal aggressions. The Pope had, in the preceding September, issued Letters Apostolic, establishing a Roman Catholic Hierarchy in England, and in which he had mapped out the whole country into papal dioceses. This act of aggression produced a storm of public indignation. It was regarded by the people generally as an attempt to wrest from them their liberties and enslave them. It was looked upon by the Protestants indignantly as an attack upon the Reformed Faith. Anglicans resented it as an act which practically denied the jurisdiction and authority of the Church of England, established already by law. Englishmen, faithfully devoted to the British Constitution, which guaranteed the Protestant Religion, were incensed by this interference with the prerogative of the Crown; while all ardent patriots were influenced by the unwarranted and unsolicited interference of a foreign potentate. Every element of combustion being present, meetings were held everywhere, inflammatory speeches were made on every public occasion, and patriotic resolutions were passed. Pulpit and platform rang with repeated cries of "No Popery," and echoed at the Lord Mayor's banquet, at the Guildhall, and even at Covent Garden Theatre in Shakesperian strains. The Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, published his famous Durham letter, addressed to the Bishop of Durham, rebuking and defying the Pope, and charging the whole High Church Party of the Church of England with being the secret allies and fellow-workers of Rome.

In the beginning of the Parliamentary session of 1851 Lord John Russell moved for permission to bring in a bill to counteract the aggressive policy of the Church of Rome, on account of which aggression of the Pope the whole country was well-nigh in a condition of panic. The measure was debated for four days, and was entitled the Ecclesiastical Faiths Bill. It was designed to prevent the assumption by Roman Catholic prelates of titles taken from any territory or place in England. Severe penalties were attached to the use of such titles, and all acts done by, and requests made to, persons under them were to be void. The bill was not well received by some, being thought, on one side too mild and on the other as too stringent. Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone both opposed it; the latter because the change was wanted by English Catholics rather than by the Vatican. He condemned the vanity and boastful spirit of the papal documents, but contended that his fellow Catholic countrymen should not suffer for that. The difficulty of applying it to Ireland, where the system objected to already existed, was pointed out. However the preliminary motion was passed by 395 votes against 63, "this enormous majority," says an English author, "attesting the wide-spread fear of Romish machinations." The measure became a law, but it was a dead letter, and was quietly repealed twenty years afterwards at Mr. Gladstone's request.

Before, however, the bill was passed a ministerial crisis had intervened. During this session other difficulties were encountered by the Ministry. The financial as well as this ecclesiastical question was a problem. The Conservatives were strong and compact, and enjoyed the adhesion of the Peelites, while the Ministerial party was to a great extent demoralized. Mr. Disraeli, owing to the deep distress that prevailed in the agricultural districts, renewed his motion upon the burdens on land and the inequalities of taxation, and consequently he presented a resolution that it was the duty of the government to introduce measures for the alleviation of the distress without delay. The government admitted the distress, but denied that it was increasing. They attempted to prove that pauperism had decreased in all parts of the kingdom—England, Ireland and Scotland. Commerce was in a most prosperous condition, while the revenues had reached the unexampled amount of $350,000,000. "Sir James Graham stigmatized the motion as an attempt to turn out the administration, to dissolve Parliament, and to return to Protection." The Ministry was sustained by a small majority, and was successful in some measures, but soon suffered several minor defeats and finally was forced to retire.

One of the successful measures was that introduced by Mr. Loche King, and opposed by Lord John Russell, for assimilating the country franchise to that of the boroughs. The budget of the government introduced January 17th was unpopular. It demanded a renewed lease for three years of the obnoxious income-tax, but promised a partial remission of the window duties, which was a tax upon every window in a house, together with some relief to the agriculturists. The first budget having been rejected a second financial statement was offered later in the session. It imposed a house-tax, withdrew the bonus to agriculturists, repealed the window-tax, but re-demanded the income-tax for three years. The main features of the budget were acceptable to the House, but the Government suffered defeat on minor financial questions, which tendered still further to diminish the popularity of the ministry.

Upon the resignation of Lord John Russell and his Cabinet, in February, 1851, Lord Stanley was called upon to form a new administration, and Mr. Gladstone was invited to become a member of the Cabinet. Lord Stanley having failed, Lord Aberdeen was invited to form a new Cabinet, by the Queen, with like results. Both these gentlemen having declined the task of forming a new administration, Lord John Russell and his colleagues resumed office, but the reconstructed ministry was soon to receive a fatal blow through Lord Palmerston, the foreign Secretary.

On the 2d of December, 1851, Louis Napoleon, Prince President of the French Republic, by a single act of lawless violence, abolished the constitution, and made himself Dictator. The details of this monstrous deed, and of the bloodshed that accompanied it, created a profound sensation in England. The Queen was very anxious that no step should be taken and no word said by her ministry which could be construed into an approval by the English government of what had been done. Indeed the Queen who knew the failing of her Foreign Secretary to act hastily in important matters of State without the consent or advice of Queen or Cabinet, questioned the Premier and was assured that nothing had been done in recognition of the new government in Paris. Indeed the Cabinet had passed a resolution to abstain from the expression of opinions in approval or disapproval of the recent coup d'etat in France. But it soon leaked out that Lord Palmerston who thought he understood full well the foreign relations of England, and what her policy should be, had both in public dispatches and private conversation spoken favorably of the policy adopted by Louis Napoleon. He had even expressed to Count Walewski, the French Ambassador in London, his entire approval of the Prince President's act. This was too much for the Queen, who had as early as the August before, in a memorandum sent to the Premier, imperatively protested against the crown's being ignored by the Foreign Secretary, so Lord Palmerston was dismissed from office by Lord John Russell, Christmas Eve, 1851. He bore his discharge with meekness, and even omitted in Parliament to defend himself in points where he was wronged. But Justin McCarthy says: "Lord Palmerston was in the wrong in many if not most of the controversies which had preceded it; that is to say, he was wrong in committing England as he so often did to measures which had not the approval of the sovereign or his colleagues."

In February following, 1852, Lord Palmerston enjoyed, as he expressed it, his "tit-for-tat with Johnny Russell" and helped the Tories to defeat his late chief in a measure for reorganizing the militia as a precaution against possible aggression from France. The ministry had not saved itself by the overthrow of Lord Palmerston.

Upon the retirement of Lord John Russell from office, in 1852, the Earl of Derby, formerly Lord Stanley, succeeded him as Prime Minister. Mr. Gladstone was invited to become a member of the new Tory Cabinet, but declined, whereupon Lord Malmesbury dubiously remarked, November 28th: "I cannot make out Gladstone, who seems to me a dark horse." Mr. Disraeli was chosen Chancellor of the Exchequer, and became Leader in the House of Commons, entering the Cabinet for the first time. "There was a scarcely disguised intention to revive protection." It was Free Trade or Protection, and the Peelites defended their fallen leader, Peel. "A makeshift budget" was introduced by Mr. Disraeli and passed. It was destined, it seems, that the Derby Administration was not to be supported, but to be driven out of power by Mr. Gladstone, who was to cross swords before the nation with his future parliamentary rival, Disraeli.

Mr. Disraeli seemed now bent upon declaring the Free Trade Policy of Sir Robert Peel a failure. Mr. Disraeli's power of forgetfulness of the past is one of the most fortunate ever conferred upon a statesman. During the debate he declared that the main reason why his party had opposed Free Trade was not that it would injure the landlord, nor the farmer, but that "it would prove injurious to the cause of labor." "He also said, though interrupted by cries of astonishment and of 'Oh, oh!' that not a single attempt had been made in the House of Commons to abrogate the measure of 1846." Mr. Sidney Herbert, who was wounded to the quick by the assaults on Sir Robert Peel, rose to defend the great Conservative statesman. His speech contained one passage of scathing invective addressed to Mr. Disraeli.

Mr. Herbert said: "The memory of Sir Robert Peel requires no vindication—his memory is embalmed in the grateful recollection of the people of this country; and I say, if ever retribution is wanted—for it is not words that humiliate, but deeds—if a man wants to see humiliation, which God knows is always a painful sight, he need but look there!"—and upon this Mr. Herbert pointed with his finger to Mr. Disraeli sitting on the Treasury Bench. The sting of invective is truth, and Mr. Herbert certainly spoke daggers if he used none; yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat impassive as a Sphinx.

Parliament was dissolved soon after the formation of the new government, July 1, 1852, and during the recess, September 14, 1852, the Duke of Wellington passed away and a public funeral was given the victor of Waterloo.

On the assembling of Parliament Mr. Gladstone delivered a eulogy on the Duke, drawing special lessons from his illustrious career, which had been prolonged to a green old age. Mr. Gladstone said: "While many of the actions of his life, while many of the qualities he possessed, are unattainable by others, there are lessons which we may all derive from the life and actions of that illustrious man. It may never be given to another subject of the British Crown to perform services so brilliant as he performed; it may never be given to another man to hold the sword which was to gain the independence of Europe, to rally the nations around it, and while England saved herself by her constancy, to save Europe by her example; it may never be given to another man, after having attained such eminence, after such an unexampled series of victories, to show equal moderation in peace as he has shown greatness in war, and to devote the remainder of his life to the cause of internal and external peace for that country which he has so well served; it may never be given to another man to have equal authority, both with the Sovereign he served and with the Senate of which he was to the end a venerated member; it may never be given to another man after such a career to preserve, even to the last, the full possession of those great faculties with which he was endowed, and to carry on the services of one of the most important departments of the State with unexampled regularity and success, even to the latest day of his life. These are circumstances, these are qualities, which may never occur again in the history of this country. But these are qualities which the Duke of Wellington displayed, of which we may all act in humble imitation: that sincere and unceasing devotion to our country; that honest and upright determination to act for the benefit of the country on every occasion; that devoted loyalty, which, while it made him ever anxious to serve the Crown, never induced him to conceal from the Sovereign that which he believed to be the truth; that devotedness in the constant performance of duty; that temperance of his life, which enabled him at all times to give his mind and his faculties to the services which he was called on to perform; that regular, consistent, and unceasing piety by which he was distinguished at all times of his life; these are qualities that are attainable by others, and these are qualities which should not be lost as an example."

At this session of Parliament Mr. Disraeli brought forward his second budget in a five hour speech. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to remit a portion of the taxes upon malt, tea, and sugar, but to counterbalance these losses he also proposed to extend the income-tax and house-tax. The debate, which was very personal, was prolonged several days, and Mr. Disraeli, towards its close, bitterly attacked several members, among them Sir James Graham, whom Mr. Gladstone not only defended, but in so doing administered a scathing rebuke to the Chancellor for his bitter invective and personal abuse. Mr. Gladstone's speech at the close of Mr. Disraeli's presentation was crushing, and was generally regarded as giving the death-blow to this financial scheme.

Mr. Gladstone told Mr. Disraeli that he was not entitled to charge with insolence men of as high position and of as high character in the House as himself, and when the cheers which had interrupted him had subsided, concluded: "I must tell the right honorable gentleman that he is not entitled to say to my right honorable friend, the member for Carlisle, that he regards but does not respect him. And I must tell him that whatever else he has learnt—and he has learnt much—he has not learnt to keep within those limits of discretion, of moderation, and of forbearance that ought to restrain the conduct and language of every member in this House, the disregard of which, while it is an offence in the meanest amongst us, is an offence of tenfold weight when committed by the leader of the House of Commons."