grow more Turkish every day;
reasonably plain that some grave arguments against moving have now
lost their force. My own inclination is towards a series of
resolutions with such points as are rudely indicated on the
enclosed scrap. Please to let me have it again at some time; I
have no copy.

_To the Duke of Argyll. April 26, 1877._--I have drawn some
resolutions of which I intend to give notice to-day unless the
leaders will move. If they will move, though they may say much
less, I can support them and express my fuller ideas in a speech.
I cannot leave my bed, but notice will be given in my name.

_From the Diary. April 27, 1877._--Ill in the night; kept my bed.
Saw Dr. Clark twice. Saw Mr. Goschen, Lord Wolverton, Mr. Bright,
Lord Frederick Cavendish. This day I took my decision, a severe
one, in face of my not having a single approver in the _upper_
official circle. But had I in the first days of September asked
the same body whether I ought to write my pamphlet, I believe the
unanimous answer would have been No. Arranged for the first
(general) notice to be given, in my absence.

The resolutions were five in number, and the pith of them was, first, an
expression of complaint against the Porte; second, a declaration that, in
the absence of guarantees on behalf of the subject populations, the Porte
had lost all claim to support, moral or material; third, a desire that
British influence should be employed on behalf of local liberty and
self-government in the disturbed provinces; fourth, this influence to be
addressed to promoting the concert of the Powers in exacting from the
Porte such changes as they might deem to be necessary for humanity and
justice; fifth, an address to the crown accordingly. On the expediency of
these resolutions, at a moment when a war with many complexities had just
broken out, opinion in the party was divided. The official liberals and
their special adherents doubted. The radicals below the gangway, headed by
Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, supported the resolutions with
enthusiasm. Adverse notices of the previous question were put upon the
paper. Lord Granville wrote to Mr. Gladstone (May 2) that his colleagues
on the front opposition bench had met, and were still of opinion, "that it
was not opportune at this moment to move resolutions, and thought that the
least antagonistic course as regarded you would be t