next day the vice-chancellor notified that there would be an election,
Mr. Gladstone having 'vacated his seat by accepting the office of lord
high commissioner of the Ionian Islands, which he no longer holds.' He
was re-elected (Feb. 12) without opposition.

[382] Mr. Gladstone, May 7, 1861.--_Hans._ Third Ser. 162. p. 1687.

[383] Napier in his _Memoir on the Roads of Cephalonia_ (p. 45) tells
how Maitland had a notion of building a fort on that island, and on his
boat one day asked the commanding engineer how much it would cost. The
engineer talked about L100,000. 'Upon this Sir Thomas turned round in
the boat, with a long and loud whistle. After this whistle I thought it
best to let at least a year pass without again mentioning the subject.'

[384] Ashley, ii. pp. 184, 186.

[385] _Dec. 8, 1862._--Cabinet. Resolution to surrender the Ionian
protectorate. Only Lord W[estbury] opposing.

[386] Mr. Gladstone sent home and revised afterwards three elaborate
reports on the mischiefs of Ionian government and the constitutional
remedies proper for them. They were printed for the use of the cabinet,
though whether these fifty large pages, amounting to about a quarter of
this volume, received much attention from that body, may without
_scandalum magnatum_ be doubted, nor do the reports appear to have been
laid before parliament. The Italian war was then creating an agitation
in Europe upon nationality, as to which the people of the Ionian islands
were sensitively alive, and the reports would have supplied a good deal
of fuel. There was a separate fourth report upon the suppression of
disorder in Cephalonia in 1848, which everybody afterwards agreed that
it was not expedient to publish. It still exists in the archives of the
colonial office.

CHAPTER XI

JUNCTION WITH THE LIBERALS

(_1859_)

Conviction, in spite of early associations and long-cherished
preposessions--strong conviction, and an overpowering sense of the
public interests operating for many, many years before full effect
was given to it, placed me in the ranks of the liberal
party.--GLADSTONE (Ormskirk, 1867).

When Mr. Gladstone returned to England in March 1859, he found the
conservatives with much ineffectual industry, some misplaced ingenuity,
and many misgivings and divisions, trying their hands at parliamentary
reform. Their infring