to Pembroke Lodge. He was going, he said, to ask Lord
John what they should say if they were asked at the meeting whether they
had come to an agreement. The interview was not unsatisfactory. Four
days later (June 6) a well-attended meeting of the party was held at
Willis's Rooms. The two protagonists declared themselves ready to aid in
forming a government on a broad basis, and it was understood that either
would serve under the other. It would be for the sovereign to decide.
Mr. Bright spoke in what the whigs pronounced to be a highly reasonable
vein, and they all broke up in great spirits. The whip pored over his
lists, and made out that they could not beat the government by less than
seven. This was but a slender margin for a vote of no confidence, but it
was felt that mere numbers, though a majority might be an indispensable
incident, were in this case not the only test of the conditions required
for a solid government. Lord Hartington, the representative of the great
house of Cavendish, was put up to move a vote of no confidence.[388]

FALL OF THE DERBY GOVERNMENT

After three days' debate, ministers were defeated (June 11) by the
narrow figure of thirteen in a House of six hundred and thirty-seven.
Mr. Gladstone did not speak, but he answered the riddle that had for
long so much harassed the wirepullers, by going into the lobby with
Disraeli and his flock. The general sense of the majority was probably
best expressed by Mr. Bright. Since the fall of the government of Sir
Robert Peel, he said, there had been no good handling of the liberal
party in the House: the cabinet had been exclusive, the policy had been
sometimes wholly wrong, and generally feeble and paltering: if in the
new government there should be found men adequately representing these
reconciled sections, acting with some measure of boldness and power,
grappling with the abuses that were admitted to exist, and relying upon
the moral sense and honest feeling of the House, and the general
sympathy of the people of England for improvement in our legislation, he
was bold to hope that the new government would have a longer tenure of
office than any government that had existed for many years past.

The Queen, in the embarrassment of a choice between the two whig
veterans, induced Lord Granville, whose cabinet life as yet was only
some five years, to try to form a government. This step Palmerston
explained by her German sympathies, which