ments, such as
the Oregon question for example, and all the reading connected with
them. I can hardly tell you, for instance, what trouble the New
Zealand question gave me. Then there is the difficulty that you
have in conducting such questions on account of your colleague whom
they concern.'

It was evident from this, as it had been from other signs, that he
did not think Stanley had been happy in his management of the New
Zealand question. I said, however, 'I can quite assent to the
proposition that no one understands the labour of your post; that,
I think, is all I ever felt I could know about it, that there is
nothing else like it. But then you have been prime minister in a
sense in which no other man has been it since Mr. Pitt's time.' He
said, 'But Mr. Pitt got up every day at eleven o'clock, and drank
two bottles of port wine every night.' 'And died of old age at
forty-six,' I replied. 'This all strengthens the case. I grant your
full and perfect claim to retirement in point of justice and
reason; if such a claim can be made good by amount of service, I do
not see how yours could be improved. You have had extraordinary
physical strength to sustain you; and you have performed an
extraordinary task. Your government has not been carried on by a
cabinet, but by the heads of departments each in communication with
you.' He assented, and added it had been what every government
ought to be, a government of confidence in one another. 'I have
felt the utmost confidence as to matters of which I had no
knowledge, and so have the rest. Lord Aberdeen in particular said
that nothing would induce him to hold office on any other
principle, or to be otherwise than perfectly free as to previous
consultations.' And he spoke of the defects of the Melbourne
government as a mere government of departments without a centre of
unity, and of the possibility that the new ministers might
experience difficulty in the same respect. I then went on to say,
'Mr. Perceval, Lord Liverpool, Lord Melbourne were not prime
ministers in this sense; what Mr. Canning might have been, the time
was too short to show. I fully grant that your labours have been
incredible, but, allow me to say, that is not the question. The
question is not whether you are entitled to retire, but whet