t properly belonging
to the Protection Party who had accepted office (First Lord of the
Admiralty). At one time Lord Ellenborough had accepted, but having
been sent on a mission to Mr Goulburn in order to see whether he
could convert him, he came home himself converted, and withdrew his
acceptance again.

In this situation Lord Stanley called his friends together, and after
some discussion concurred in their opinion that it was not possible
for them to form such an Administration as ought to be offered to the
Queen. Lord Stanley then qualified this expression again, and said
that though he could have offered a very respectable Government if
he had had a majority in the House of Commons, or the means of
strengthening himself by an immediate Dissolution, he could not form
such a one which could have withstood an adverse majority and such a
formidable array of talent in the Opposition. He therefore returned
the trust which had been committed to him into the Queen's hands,
expressing at the same time his deep sense of gratitude for the
kindness with which she had treated him, the support and confidence
she had given him, sorry only that it should have led to no result.
He thought, however, that the prolongation of the crisis had not
inconvenienced the public service, as Her Majesty's _present_
Government were constitutionally enabled to carry on all necessary
business.

The Queen rejoined that she was very sorry that this attempt had also
failed, that she had tried every possible combination, and still was
without a Government. Lord Stanley answered as if he considered
it natural that Lord John Russell's Government should now quietly
proceed; but on the Queen's observation, that it was now necessary
that all Parties should join in the support of some measures at least,
and particularly the Papal Bill, he stated what he was prepared to
support, and would have been prepared to propose had he taken office,
viz. a fuller recital in the preamble of the Bill and no penal clause
in the body of it. (The present Bill looked pettish and undignified,
as if framed in anger as a return for the insult, and not a correction
of the state of the law.) He thought the Law very complex and obscure,
and never found it acted upon. He would have proposed therefore that
Committees of both Houses should enquire into the whole subject; the
state of the Convents; whether subjects were detained against their
will; whether people were forced to bequ