hurried to Cambridge House and told him the desperate
tidings. On the very instant he sent down a note of inquiry to Mr.
Gladstone, asking what he had really said. A brisk correspondence
followed, neither heated nor unfriendly.

In the morning Lord Palmerston had written him a premonitory note, not to
commit himself or the government to any particular figure of borough
franchise; that a six pound franchise had gone to the bottom; that if they
should ever have to bring in a reform bill, they ought to be free from
fresh pledges; that the workmen would swamp the classes above them; that
their influx would discourage the classes above from voting at all; and
that the workmen were under the control of trade unions directed by a
small number of agitators. All this was the good conservative common form
of the time. The speech itself, when the prime minister came to see it,
proved no sedative.

_Lord Palmerston to Mr. Gladstone._

_May 12, 1864._--I have read your speech, and I must frankly say,
with much regret; as there is little in it that I can agree with,
and much from which I differ. You lay down broadly the doctrine of
universal suffrage which I can never accept. I entirely deny that
every sane and not disqualified man has a moral right to a vote. I
use that expression instead of "the pale of the constitution,"
because I hold that all who enjoy the security and civil rights
which the constitution provides are within its pale. What every
man and woman too has a right to, is to be well governed and under
just laws, and they who propose a change ought to show that the
present organisation does not accomplish those objects....

You did not pronounce an opinion in favour of a specified
franchise; but is there any essential difference between naming a
six pound franchise and naming the additional numbers which a six
pound franchise was calculated to admit? I am not going to perform
the duty which Whiteside assigned to me of answering your speech,
but, if you will not take it amiss, I would say, that it was more
like the sort of speech with which Bright would have introduced
the Reform bill which he would like to propose, than the sort of
speech which might have been expected from the treasury bench in
the present state of things. Your speech may win Lancashire for
you, though that is doubtful, but I fear it will tend to lose
E