him to use it with good
effect in his negotiations with the Porte. 'Your eloquent words, the
authority of your name, and the consideration that attaches to your
character, have already contributed much and will contribute more still
to hinder the darkening and complication of a question of itself
perfectly clear and simple, and to avoid the troubling of the relations
between two countries of which it is the natural mission to hold aloft
_together_ the flag of modern civilisation.'

Mr. Gladstone took an active interest in the various measures--some of
them extremely singular--proposed by Mr. Disraeli for the transfer of
the government of India from the Company to the crown. Writing early in
the year to Sir James Graham he argued that their object should be
steadily and vigorously to resist all attempts at creating a monster
military and civil patronage, and to insist upon a real check on the
Indian minister. He had much conversation with Mr. Bright--not then an
intimate acquaintance--on the difficulty of the problem to govern a
people by a people. The two agreed strongly as to one prominent
possibility of mischief: they both distrusted the discretion confided to
the Indian minister in the use of the Indian army. Mr. Gladstone set a
mark upon the bill by carrying a clause to provide that the Indian army
should not be employed beyond the frontiers of India without the
permission of parliament. This clause he privately hoped would 'afford a
standing-ground from which a control might be exercised on future
Palmerstons.'

FOOTNOTES:

[369] The portion within brackets is from a letter of Mr. Gladstone's to
Lady Lyndhurst, Aug. 31, 1883, and he continues: 'I have often compared
Lord Lyndhurst in my own mind with the five other lord chancellors who
since his time have been my colleagues in cabinet: much to the
disadvantage in certain respects of some of them. Once I remember in the
Peel cabinet the conversation happened to touch some man (there are
such) who was too fond of making difficulties. Peel said to your
husband, "That is not your way, Lyndhurst." Of all the intellects I have
ever known, his, I think, worked with the least friction.'

[370] 'Happily for the reputation of the House, but unhappily for the
ministry, the debate assumed once more, with Gladstone's eloquence, a
statesmanlike character. The foremost speaker of the House showed
himself worthy of his reputation ... much as there was to lament in the
too rad