not to have receded.
Although I place public economy somewhat higher as a matter of duty than
many might do, I do not think it would have been right, I do think it
would have been foolish and presumptuous in me to have gone beyond these
two things: first, making an effort to the utmost of my power at the
critical moment (as I took it to be), and secondly, on being defeated to
watch for opportunities thereafter. Since it should be remembered I do not
recommend or desire sweeping and sudden reductions.

The chief errors that I see myself to have committed are these. In 1853
when I took the unusual course of estimating our income for seven years,
and assuming that our expenditure would either continue as it was, or only
move onwards gradually and gently, I ought no doubt to have pointed out
explicitly, that a great disturbance and increase of our expenditure would
baffle my reckonings. Again in 1857 the temper of the public mind had
undergone a change which I failed to discern; and I attacked the
government and the chancellor of the exchequer of that day for doing what
the country desired though I did not. I name these as specific errors,
over and above the general one of excess of heat.

The budget of last year I cannot admit to have been an error. People say
it should have been smaller. My belief is that if it had been a smaller
boat it would not have lived in such a sea. I speak of the period of the
session before the China war became certain. When it did so, we were in a
great strait about the paper duty. We felt the obligation incurred by the
vote on the second reading, and we construed it according to the
established usage. We took the more arduous, but I think the more
honourable course for a government to pursue. Had we abandoned the bill, I
know not how we could have looked in the face those who had acted and
invested on the faith of an unbroken practice. I admit that political
motives greatly concurred to recommend the budget of last year. It was a
budget of peace, and peace wanted it. The budget of this year followed
from the budget of last, given the other circumstances. At the same time I
can understand how the claim of tea could be set up, but not well after
the occurrences of last year how it could be supported.

This is a long egotistical story. But when you consider that it contains
my whole story (except _pieces justificatives_) in answer to so many
speeches in both Houses and elsewhere, for never to th