he case of the
American war), but a deep conviction of what the honour and interest of
the empire require them as faithful servants of your Majesty to advise."
(M71) The most harmless parallel is apt to be a challenge to discussion,
and the parenthesis seems to have provoked some rejoinder from the Queen,
for on April 28 Mr. Gladstone wrote to her secretary a letter which takes
him away from Khartoum to a famous piece of the world's history:--

_To Sir Henry Ponsonby._

In further prosecution of my reply to your letter of the 25th, I
advert to your remarks upon Lord North. I made no reference to his
conduct, I believe, in writing to her Majesty. What I endeavoured
to show was that King George III., without changing his opinion of
the justice of his war against the colonies, was obliged to give
it up on account of a change of public opinion, and was not open
to blame for so doing.

You state to me that Lord North never flinched from his task till
it became hopeless, that he then resigned office, but did not
change his opinions to suit the popular cry. The implied contrast
to be drawn with the present is obvious. I admit none of your
three propositions. Lord North did not, as I read history, require
to change his opinions to suit the popular cry. They were already
in accordance with the popular cry; and it is a serious reproach
against him that without sharing his master's belief in the
propriety of the war, he long persisted in carrying it on, through
subserviency to that master.

Lord North did not resign office for any reason but because he
could not help it, being driven from it by some adverse votes of
the House of Commons, to which he submitted with great good
humour, and probably with satisfaction.

Lord North did not, so far as I know, state the cause to be
hopeless. Nor did those who were opposed to him. The movers of the
resolution that drove him out of office did not proceed upon that
ground. General Conway in his speech advised the retention of the
ground we held in the colonies, and the resolution, which
expressed the sense of the House as a body, bears a singular
resemblance to the announcement we have lately made, as it
declares, in its first clause, that the further prosecution of
offensive war (on the continent of America) "will be the means of
weakening the efforts of th