r by compulsion. They made no reply,
but Granville had previously told me he was perfectly satisfied as
to my communications with him.

I at once asked whether I might reckon, as I hoped, on their
co-operation in the government. Both assented. Granville agreed to
take the foreign office, but modestly and not as of right. I
proposed the India office as next, and as very near in weight, and
perhaps the most difficult of all at this time, to Hartington,
which he desired time to consider. I named Childers as the most
proper person for the war office. As I had to prepare for Windsor,
our interview was not very long; and they agreed to come again
after dinner.

We spoke of the governor-generalship, at least I spoke to
Granville who stayed a little after Hartington, and I said
Goschen's position as to the franchise would prevent his being in
the cabinet now, but he should be in great employ. Granville had
had the lead in the conversation, and said the Queen requested
_him_ to carry the message to me.

_Audience at Windsor._

_Windsor Castle, April 23, 1880._--At 6.50 I went to the Queen, who
received me with perfect courtesy, from which she never deviates.
Her Majesty presumed I was in possession of the purport of her
communications with Lord Granville and with Lord Hartington, and
wished to know, as the administration of Lord Beaconsfield had
been "turned out," whether I was prepared to form a government.
She thought she had acted constitutionally in sending for the
recognised leaders of the party, and referring the matter to them
in the first instance. I said that if I might presume to speak,
nothing could in my views be more correct than her Majesty's view
that the application should be so made (I did not refer to the
case as _between_ Lord Granville and Lord Hartington), and that it
would have been an error to pass them by and refer to me. They had
stood, I said, between me and the position of a candidate for
office, and it was only their advising her Majesty to lay her
commands upon me, which could warrant my thinking of it after all
that had occurred. But since they had given this advice, it was
not consistent with my duty to shrink from any responsibility
which I had incurred, and I was aware that I had incurred a very
great responsibility. I therefore humbly accept