Commons trampled on in consequence of that vote.
The honour of the House is materially involved in giving it
full effect. It would therefore be my first wish to aid, if
possible, in such a task; and remembering the years when
we were colleagues, I may be permitted to say that there is
nothing in the fact of your being the Head of a Ministry,
which would avail to deter me from forming part of it.

"Among the first questions I have had to put to myself in
consequence of the offer, which you have conveyed to me in
such friendly and flattering terms, has been the question,
whether it would be in my power by accepting it, either alone,
or in concert with others, to render you material service.

"After the long years, during which we have been separated,
there would be various matters of public interest requiring to
be noticed between us; but the question I have mentioned is a
needful preliminary.

"Upon the best consideration which the moment allows, I think
it plain that alone, as I must be, I could not render you
service worth your having.

"The dissolution of last year excluded from Parliament men
with whom I had sympathies, and it in some degree affected the
position of those political friends with whom I have now for
many years been united, through evil and (much more rarely)
good report.

"Those who lament the rupture of old traditions may well
desire the reconstruction of a Party; but the reconstitution
of a Party can only be effected, if at all, by the return of
the old influences to their places, and not by the junction of
one isolated person.

"The difficulty is now enhanced in my case by the fact that in
your party, reduced as it is at the present moment in numbers,
there is a small but active and not unimportant section, who
avowedly regard me as the representative of the most dangerous
ideas. I should thus, unfortunately, be to you a source of
weakness in the heart of your own adherents, while I should
bring you no Party or group of friends to make up for their
defection or discontent.

"For the reasons which I have thus stated or glanced at, my
reply to your letter must be in the negative.

"I must, however, add that a Government formed by you at this
time will in my opinion have strong claims upon me, and upon
any one situated as I am, f