iation possessed by Lord
Aberdeen, one in entire possession too of H. M.'s confidence. They
intimated that there were peculiar disadvantages, too, evidently
meaning Lord J. Russell. I named him in my answer, and said I
thought that even if he had been steady, yet the divisions of the
ministerial party would a little later have brought about our
overthrow.[345] H. M. seeming to agree in my main position, as did
the Prince, asked me: But when will parliament return to that
state? I replied I grieved to say that I perceived neither the time
when, nor the manner how, that result is to come about; but until
it is reached, I fear that Y. M. will pass through a period of
instability and weakness as respects the executive. She observed
that the prospect is not agreeable. I said, True, madam, but it is
a great consolation that all these troubles are upon the surface,
and that the throne has for a long time been gaining and not losing
stability from year to year. I could see but one danger to the
throne, and that was from encroachments by the House of Commons. No
other body in the country was strong enough to encroach. This was
the consideration which had led my resigning colleagues with myself
to abandon office that we might make our stand against what we
thought a formidable invasion.... I thought the effect of the
resistance was traceable in the good conduct of the House of
Commons last night, when another attempt at encroachment was
proposed and firmly repelled.... I expressed my comfort at finding
that our motives were so graciously appreciated by H. M. and
withdrew.

PUBLIC OUTCRY

Loud was the public outcry. All the censure that had been foretold in
case they should refuse to join, fell with double force upon them for
first joining and then seceding. Lord Clarendon pronounced their
conduct to be actually worse and more unpatriotic than Lord John's. The
delight at Brooks's Club was uproarious, for to the whigs the Peelites
had always been odious, and they had been extremely sorry when
Palmerston asked them to join his government.[346] For a time Mr.
Gladstone was only a degree less unpopular in the country than Cobden
and Bright themselves. The newspapers declared that Gladstone's epitaph
over the Aberdeen administration might be applied with peculiar force to
his own f