to be opened by indirect
communications through the British envoy at Florence or Naples. 'What I
have to say,' Mr. Gladstone now wrote to the prime minister, 'is that if
you and Lord Aberdeen should think fit to appoint me to Florence or
Naples, and to employ me in any such communications as those to which I
have referred, I am at your disposal.' Of this startling offer to
transform himself from president of the board of trade into Vatican
envoy, Mr. Gladstone left his own later judgment upon record; here it
is, and no more needs to be said upon it:--

About the time of my resignation on account of the contemplated
increase of the grant to the College of Maynooth, I became
possessed with the idea that there was about to be a renewal in
some shape of our diplomatic [relations] with the see of Rome, and
I believe that I committed the gross error of tendering myself to
Sir Robert Peel to fill the post of envoy. I have difficulty at
this date (1894) in conceiving by what obliquity of view I could
have come to imagine that this was a rational or in any way
excusable proposal: and this, although I vaguely think my friend
James Hope had some hand in it, seems to show me now that there
existed in my mind a strong element of fanaticism. I believe that I
left it to Sir R. Peel to make me any answer or none as he might
think fit; and he with great propriety chose the latter
alternative.

INTENTION TO RESIGN

In the autumn of 1844, the prime minister understood that if he
proceeded with the Maynooth increase, he would lose Mr. Gladstone. The
loss, Peel said to Graham, was serious, and on every account to be
regretted, but no hope of averting it would justify the abandonment of a
most important part of their Irish policy. Meanwhile, in the midst of
heavy labours on the tariff in preparation for the budget of 1845, Mr.
Gladstone was sharply perturbed, as some of his letters to Mrs.
Gladstone show:--

_Whitehall, Nov. 22, '44._--It is much beyond my expectation that
Newman should have taken my letter so kindly; it seemed to me so
like the operation of a clumsy, bungling surgeon upon a sensitive
part. I cannot well comment upon his meaning, for as you may easily
judge, what with cabinet, board, and Oak Farm, I have enough in my
head to-day--and the subject is a fine and subtle one. But I may
perhaps be ab