with the idea that it savoured of cabinet office, I
considered and consulted on the Chinese question, which I regarded
as a serious impediment to office of that description, and I had
provisionally contemplated saying to Peel in case he should offer
me Ireland with the cabinet, to reply that I would gladly serve his
government in the secretaryship, but that I feared his Chinese
measures would hardly admit of my acting in the cabinet. I am very
sorry now to think that I may have been guilty of an altogether
absurd presumption, in dreaming of the cabinet. But it was wholly
suggested by that invitation. And I still think that there must
have been some consultation and decision relating to me in the
interval between the meetings and the formation of the new
ministry, which produced some alteration.... In confirmation of the
notion I have recorded above, I am distinct in the recollection
that there was a shyness in Peel's manner and a downward eye, when
he opened the conversation and made the offer, not usual with him
in speaking to me.

In after years, he thus described his position when he went to the board
of trade:--

I was totally ignorant both of political economy and of the
commerce of the country. I might have said, as I believe was said
by a former holder of the vice-presidency, that my mind was in
regard to all those matters a 'sheet of white paper,' except that
it was doubtless coloured by a traditional prejudice of protection,
which had then quite recently become a distinctive mark of
conservatism. In a spirit of ignorant mortification I said to
myself at the moment: the science of politics deals with the
government of men, but I am set to govern packages. In my journal
for Aug. 2 I find this recorded: 'Since the address meetings'
(which were quasi-cabinets) 'the idea of the Irish secretaryship
had nestled imperceptibly in my mind.'[148]

The vice-presidency was the post, by the way, impudently proposed four
years later by the whigs to Gobden, after he had taught both whigs and
tories their business. Mr. Gladstone, at least, was quick to learn the
share of 'packages' in the government of men.

REFLECTIONS ON HIS OFFICE

_Sept. 30._--Closing the month, and a period of two years
comprehended within this book, I add a few words. My position