of forty years I see no reason whatever for regretting my vote, and I should be prepared to do again, after deliberation, what I then had to do on the spur of the moment.

The result of the vote was to put an end to Lord Palmerston's Government. I had the honour of holding a post in the ministry of Lord Derby which succeeded it. The manner of my coming into office was somewhat remarkable. The critical division took place on the Friday. I went out of town on the Saturday, believing that my prospects of holding office, if I ever had any, were at an end. I noticed with some amazement my name ap pearing in Monday's 'Times' among the conjectural appointments-as Under Secretary for the Home Office. I was at the House of Commons through the week, and on Friday the 26th I heard all the writs moved. The Government was practically completed. On Friday night I left town again, and did not return until the following Wednesday, when on going into the Carlton I met Disraeli on the steps. He said to me, "Have you answered Lord Derby's letter yet?" "What letter?" I replied; and then he said, "There is a high post for you, and you will be sworn of the Privy Council. You will have to be re-elected; Lord Derby is waiting for a reply." I said that I had not got the letter, -had not heard of any. going into the Club and asking the hall-porter if there were any letters for me, he pulled

On

"ST JAMES'S SQUARE, Febry. 26th, 1858. "DEAR SIR,-The Government appointments being now nearly complete, may I request that you will do me the favour of calling here at as early an hour to-morrow between 10 and 1 as may suit your convenience. I have reserved an appointment which I am enabled to offer to your acceptance, which I think might not be unacceptable to you, and for which you are particularly well qualified. I ought to add that the acceptance will involve the necessity of vacating your seat for Durham, which, however, if your acceptance of office be locally approved, can hardly raise any difficulty.-I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, DERBY."

I

I went to St James's Square instantly, saw Lord Derby, told him that I had that moment. only received his letter, and found that the post was that of Judge Advocate-General. said that I did not feel I had any claim to the appointment,-I had voted against the party the other night. But he replied that that did not matter

it was not a party question; and would I accept the appointment? I replied, "Yes, certainly." As to the seat, I believed that that would be arranged all right. After communication in all proper quarters as to the prospects of my re-election, and after receipt of assurances as to the safety of

The duties of Judge Advocate-General, I may say here, included the revisal of courtsmartial. All cases were referred to the office, and the proceedings of general courtsmartial were submitted to the Queen in private audience. It was thus my special privilege to be honoured with such audiences at frequent intervals; and I learnt to realise to the full that, as Sir William Hayter had told me, when congratulating me on my acceptance of office, I should find the audiences with the Queen the most pleasant part of the duties of the post. The gracious kindness of the Sovereign must ever leave a most profound impression on all who have been privileged to approach her.

On April 6 I went to Windsor to be sworn of the Privy Council. We had a special train: Lord Derby, the Lord Chancellor (Chelmsford), Lord Salisbury, the father of the present Prime Minister, Lords Hardwicke, Stanley, and John Manners; Mr Henley and Mr Walpole; the Earl of Donoughmore, and myself, to be sworn in Privy Councillors; the Earl of Sefton and Lord Sudeley to be sworn in Lord Lieutenants. At the castle we found Lord Malmesbury and Lord De La Warr, and had luncheon, and waited in an anteroom until the doors

The Ministers went in, and the doors were closed and opened again in a minute. The Clerk of the Council called on Lord Donoughmore and Mr Mowbray to come in. We were ushered up the room bowing, and knelt on two cushions before her Majesty, took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and the Privy Councillors' oath, and each of us kissed the Queen's hand. The Prince shook hands with us on rising, and so did all the Privy Councillors, each getting up to do so in turn. We were then ordered to take our seats at the table, which we did. Lords Sefton and Sudeley were then called in, advanced, knelt, and took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy alone, kissed hands, and were told, "You may retire," and then straightway bowed out, not being made Privy Councillors. Lord Salisbury as Lord President read to the Queen several proposed Orders in Council; to which her Majesty said, "Approved." The Queen rose. The Lord Chancellor, being new to his work, expected that she would retire, whereas her Majesty expected us to retire; then we had a deal of laughing, and the Queen seemed greatly amused. Ultimately

we all backed out. The ceremony took less time than we expected. Lord Derby, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Sefton, and several of us walked to the station. Lord Sefton remarked to Lord Derby, "We shall be at Paddington before my brougham will be there." Lord Derby rejoined, "Walk, my boy, walk; it will do you good." On which the Chancellor observed, "No, my Lord; he will say to you

'How blest is he who ne'er consents By ill advice to walk;'

a remark that was very appropriate, as the day was stormy, the path muddy, and Lord Sefton was attired in light lavender trousers and thin patentleather boots. And so "the Lords of the Council" returned to town.

The affairs of India absorbed the attention of Parliament throughout the session. On February 18 Lord Palmerston had obtained leave, by a majority of 145, to bring in a bill (India No. 1) to transfer the government of our great Indian Empire from the East India Company to the Crown. That bill never reappeared, for Lord Palmerston's Government fell. On March 26 Mr Disraeli obtained leave to bring in a bill (No. 2), which was said to be Lord Ellenborough's scheme. He spoke of the emotion he felt when he proposed to abolish that famous corporation of the East India Company, which, “like Venice, had left a legacy of glory to mankind." He proposed that there should be a Secretary of State for India to preside over a Council of

eighteen persons, nine nominated by the Crown and nine chosen by popular electionfour by a special constituency created under the bill, and five by London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Belfast. The proposal was not favourably received by the House. Mr Roebuck declared that from beginning to end the proposal was a sham; and Mr Bright, while disclaiming any hostility to the new Government, said that the proposal whereby five large constituencies should elect councillors savoured of claptrap. On April 26 came another stage leading up to the introduction of another bill (No. 3), when Mr Disraeli moved that the House should go into Committee to consider certain Resolutions which the Government had laid on the table. Lord Palmerston had amused the whole House by saying of Bill No. 2: "People met one another in the street and one laughed, and the other laughed, and everybody laughed. 'What are you laughing at?' said one. 'Why, at the India Bill, to be sure. What are you laughing at?' Why, I was laughing at the India Bill.' That was the reception it met with out of doors." Mr Gladstone remonstrated against the Resolutions, and protested against attempts at legislation which he did not believe would be attended with any satisfactory result. Lord John Russell favoured proceeding by Resolution with a view to legislation during the then existing session. The House agreed to the motion without division. But when the day

came for going into Committee, on April 30, Lord Harry Vane moved to postpone legislation to another year. That was rejected by 447 to 57. On going into Committee on the Resolutions on May 7, Mr Edward Ellice, in a speech which Lord John Russell described as being one-half of it too late and the other half too soon, and as a member of what Mr Disraeli called a party of confusion, enendeavoured to obstruct the progress of the Resolutions; but ultimately they were all agreed to, and the Government of India Bill (No. 3) was read a first time on June 17. It passed our House on July 8, with the cordial and hearty assent of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, and the thanks of Mr Disraeli to both sides of the House for the candour and patience with which they had assisted the Government in the progress of the measure. The bill received the Royal Assent on August 2.

But in the middle of the discussion of the Resolutions a week was lost in a great party fight. On May 14 a vote of censure was moved in both Houses in the Lords by Lord Shaftesbury, in the Commons by Mr Cardwell-censuring the Government for having made public a despatch of Lord Ellenborough condemning the conduct of Lord Canning, the Governor-General of India, in issuing a proclamation to the King of Oude. In the Lords the vote of censure was defeated only by a majority of nine, and that by moving the previous question, Contents-i.e., for

vote of censure-158; Not Contents-i.e., for previous question -167. In the Commons several nights were consumed in debate until Mr Bright said that Mr Cardwell had raked together a great many small things to swell up a great case, and he characterised the speech of the Solicitor-General, Sir Hugh Cairns, in reply as the cleverest logic and the most complete and exhaustive argument, and as a conclusive answer to the charge against the Government. And thus the debate might have ended. Lord Ellenborough at an early stage had rendered an attack on the whole Cabinet unnecessary by submitting his resignation to the Queen and taking upon himself the entire responsibility for the act. But the object was to destroy the Government, or at any rate to force a dissolution. There is no doubt that at one time things looked very black for us. As the debate progressed, however, the prospects of the Government improved daily, until at length on May 21, when the division was expected to take place, the great faction fight ended in a fiasco. Mr Clay rose and asked Mr Cardwell to withdraw his motion. Mr Cardwell declined. Mr Tom Duncombe, the Radical member for Finsbury, said that "he intended to vote for the motion, and if Mr Cardwell held him to that pledge, perhaps he ought to be held to it: as it was, all he had to do was to take off his hat and wish him good night, and leave him to the tender mercies of hon. members opposite." Questions

were asked in all parts of the House, by all sorts of people, of all sorts of people. The merriment of the Ministerialists became rather boisterous when Lord John Russell moved up from below the ganway to take his seat next Lord Palmerston on the front opposition bench for a few minutes' conversation. The pious aspiration of an eminent ex-law officer had evidently been realised, "These - two-old-men - must be brought together." At last Mr Cardwell said it was his desire to do what he could not do in the early part of the evening, and to act in accordance with what appeared to be the general feeling of the House, and to withdraw his motion. Mr Gladstone approved of the propriety of that course, and Mr Disraeli, while assenting to it, stated that it was not because the Government shrank from going to a vote that he did so. Mr Bright, while admitting that the House had arrived at a conclusion which he thought would excite the amusement and perhaps the ridicule of the public, implored every man in the House to return to the consideration of the Resolutions on the India Bill with the object of passing the best Resolutions and the best bill in the shortest possible time which the intelligence of the House could devise. And so the "Cabal" came to an end, and the House, which expected to sit to a late hour, went home to dinner before eight. Chancellor of the Exchequer, radiant from his triumph, made a speech in the following week at Slough, and descanted to a

The

sympathetic audience on the series of "dissolving views" which had afforded so much delight and amusement to the House.

One personal incident of the session deserves special notice. Sir William Fraser in his book, 'Disraeli and his Day,' states that Disraeli only laughed once in the House of Commons. It occurred on May 4. I can remember the incident well. Mr Gladstone had made a long and impassioned speech in favour of the union of the two Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, in the course of which he had drawn a glowing picture of the virtues of these representatives of the "ancient Dacians." Mr Disraeli, in opposing the motion, pointed out that the probable result would be the extinction of the independence of these interesting people, and went on to say that the only thing left would be the remorse which all would feel, "and which would be painted with admirable eloquence by the rhetorician of the day." Mr Gladstone in reply said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had lavished compliments upon the rhetorician of the day, and that he would not be guilty of the affected modesty of pretending to be ignorant that that designation was intended for himself. Mr Disraeli interrupted him with the remark, "I beg your pardon, I really did not mean that." Mr Disraeli sat down with a subdued and satisfied smile that