the only instrument through which
there is any hope, humanly speaking, of any safe and early settlement,
and when all parties agree that the government of the Queen ought to be
strengthened, I have joined the only administration that could be
formed, in concert with all the friends (setting aside those whom age
excludes) with whom I joined and acted in the government of Lord
Aberdeen.'

To the provost of Oriel he addressed a rather elaborate
explanation,[391] but it only expands what he says more briefly in a
letter (June 16) to Sir William Heathcote, an excellent and honourable
man, his colleague in the representation of Oxford:--

I am so little sensible of having had any very doubtful point to
consider, that I feel confident that, given the antecedents of the
problem as they clearly stood before me, you would have decided in
the way that I have done. For thirteen years, the middle space of
life, I have been cast out of party connection, severed from my old
party, and loath irrecoverably to join a new one. So long have I
adhered to the vague hope of a reconstruction, that I have been
left alone by every political friend in association with whom I had
grown up. My votes too, and such support as I could give, have
practically been given to Lord Derby's government, in such a manner
as undoubtedly to divest me of all claims whatever on the liberal
party and the incoming government. Under these circumstances I am
asked to take office. The two leading points which must determine
immediate action are those of reform and foreign policy. On the
first I think that Lord Derby had by dissolution lost all chance of
settling it; and, as I desire to see it settled, it seems my duty
to assist those who perhaps may settle it. Upon the second I am in
real and close harmony of sentiment with the new premier, and the
new foreign secretary. How could I, under these circumstances, say,
I will have nothing to do with you, and be the one remaining
Ishmael in the House of Commons?

Writing to Sir John Acton in 1864, Mr. Gladstone said:--

When I took my present office in 1859, I had several negative and
several positive reasons for accepting it. Of the first, there were
these. There had been differences and collisions, but there were no
resentments. I felt myself to be mischievous in an isolated
position, outs