to another department. I then went over some of the matters needful
to be made known. On Tuesday he came again, acquainted me with his
acceptance, and told me he had been mainly influenced by my
promise.[344]

This day at a quarter to three I attended at the palace to resign
the seals, and had an audience of about twenty minutes. The Queen,
in taking them over, was pleased to say that she received them with
great pain. I answered that the decision which had required me to
surrender them had been the most painful effort of my public life.
The Queen said she was afraid on Saturday night [Feb. 17, when he
had dined at the palace] from the language I then used that this
was about to happen. I answered that we had then already had a
discussion in the cabinet which pointed to this result, and that I
spoke as I did, because I thought that to have no reserve whatever
with H. M. was the first duty of all those who had the honour and
happiness of being her servants. I trusted H. M. would believe that
we had all been governed by no other desire than to do what was
best for the interests of the crown and the country. H. M. expressed
her confidence of this, and at no time throughout the conversation
did she in any manner indicate an opinion that our decision had
been wrong. She spoke of the difficulty of making arrangements for
carrying on the government in the present state of things, and I
frankly gave my opinion to H. M. that she would have little peace or
comfort in these matters, until parliament should have returned to
its old organisation in two political parties; that at present we
were in a false position, and that both sides of the House were
demoralised--the ministerial side overcharged with an excess of
official men, and the way stopped up against expectants, which led
to subdivision, jealousy, and intrigue; the opposition so weak in
persons having experience of affairs as to be scarcely within the
chances of office, and consequently made reckless by acting without
keeping it in view; yet at the same time, the party continued and
must continue to exist, for it embodied one of the great
fundamental elements of English society. The experiment of
coalition had been tried with remarkable advantage under a man of
the remarkable wisdom and powers of concil