tage." It was instructive to find this love of freedom, and
resentment of interference, in the bowels of the earth of Spitalfields.

An incident which helps to illustrate Gladstone's personal ascendancy
belongs to this period. Those were the days of agitation for and
against a Channel Tunnel, eagerly promoted by speculative tunnel-makers,
and resolutely opposed by Mr. Chamberlain, then President of the Board
of Trade. Gladstone, when asked if he was for or against the Tunnel,
said very characteristically, "I am not so much in favour of the Tunnel,
as opposed to the opponents of it"; and this of course meant that he was
really in favour of it. About this time I met him at dinner, and after
the ladies had gone, I think we were eight men round the table.
Gladstone began praising the Tunnel; one of the hearers echoed him, and
the rest of us were silent. Looking round triumphantly, Gladstone said,
"Ah, this is capital! Here we are--eight sensible men--and all in favour
of the Tunnel." Knowing that several of us were against the Tunnel, I
challenged a division and collected the votes. Excepting Gladstone and
his echo, we all were anti-tunnelites, and yet none of us would have had
the hardihood to say so.

In this year--1883--Gladstone's Government had regained some portion of
the popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ran
out, their success was palpably on the wane, and their popularity of
course waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities,
crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to be
concealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Government
resolved on their crowning and fatal blunder. On the 18th of January,
Lord Hartington (Secretary of State for War), Lord Granville, Lord
Northbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke had an interview with General Gordon,
and determined that he should be sent to evacuate the Soudan. Gladstone
assented, and Gordon started that evening on his ill-starred errand. In
view of subsequent events, it is worth recording that there were some
Liberals who, from the moment they heard of it, condemned the
undertaking. The dithyrambics of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ drew from
William Cory[38] the following protest:

"January 21, 1884.

"It's really ludicrous--the P. M. G. professing a clearly
suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will
cook the goose if no o