had remonstrated with him as to his decision: 'It is not in my nature to
retain a station one moment after I get a hint even that any portion
of those who raised me to it are wearied of seeing me there. The old
members of the party will all recollect how clearly I foresaw and
foretold that I should be found a very inconvenient as well as a very
inefficient leader, so soon as the great Protection battle was brought
to a close. I predicted all that has since occurred; and no one more
cordially agrees than I do in the wisdom of the present decision, the
spirit I presume of which is that no great party or large body of men
can be successfully, or to any good purpose, led except by a man
who heart and soul sympathizes with them in all their feelings,
partialities, and prejudices. Cold reason has a poor chance against such
influences. There can be no _esprit de corps_ and no zeal where there
is not a union of prejudices as well as of commercial opinions. The
election of a leader united with the great body of the party in these
respects, will tend greatly to reunite its scattered particles, even on
those questions where I shall be able to give my aid with all my wonted
zeal, which will not be the less spirited because it will be free and
independent.'

At a later period, acknowledging an address signed by the great body
of the Protectionist party, and presented to him by the present Earl
Talbot, then a member of the House of Commons, Lord George wrote, 'The
considerations which obliged me to surrender a post of honour which
every independent and high-minded English gentleman has at all times
prized above the highest rewards in the gift of the crown, "the
leadership of the country gentlemen of England," will never influence
me to swerve from any endeavours of which my poor abilities and bodily
energies are capable in the promotion of the prosperity of all classes
in the British empire at home and in the colonies, any more than
they can ever make me forget the attachment, the friendship, and the
enthusiastic support of those who stood by me to the end of the death
struggle for British interests and for English good faith and political
honour, and to whose continued friendship and constancy I know I am
indebted for this graceful and grateful compliment.'

If Lord George Bentinck was inexorable to the entreaties of his friends,
it must not be supposed that he was influenced in the course which he
pursued, as was presumed by many