have made use of Dr. Ball to supply him with arguments against the
government.

The result was doubtful to the very end. It was three o'clock in the
morning (June 19) before the close of a fine debate--fine not merely from
the eloquence of the speakers and cogency of argument on either side, but
because there was a deep and real issue, and because the practical
conclusion was not foregone. It was the fullest House assembled in living
memory. Three hundred and twenty-five peers voted. The two English
archbishops did not vote, and Thirlwall was the only prelate who supported
the second reading. It was carried by a majority of 33. In 1857 Lord
Derby's vote of censure on Palmerston for the China war was defeated by
36, and these two were the only cases in which the conservatives had been
beaten in the Lords for twenty years. Thirty-six conservative peers,
including Lord Salisbury, voted away from their party in favour of the
second reading.

IV

(M82) For the moment ministers breathed freely, but the bill was soon in
the trough of the sea. The archbishop wrote to the Queen that they had
decided if they could not get three million pounds to float the new church
upon, they would take their chance of what might happen by postponing the
bill until next year. Asked by the Queen what could be done (July 10),
Lord Granville, being at Windsor, answered that the cabinet would not make
up their mind until they knew how far the Lords would go in resistance,
but he thought it right to tell her that there was no chance of ministers
agreeing to postpone the bill for another year. The day after this
conversation, the Queen wrote again to the archbishop, asking him
seriously to reflect, in case the concessions of the government should not
go quite so far as he might himself wish, whether the postponement of the
settlement for another year would not be likely to result rather in worse
than in better terms for the church. She trusted that he would himself
consider, and endeavour to induce others to consider, any concessions
offered by the House of Commons in the most conciliatory spirit, rather
than to try and get rid of the bill. "The amendments," said Mr. Gladstone,
"seem to mean war to the knife."

After the second reading a tory lady of high station told Lord Clarendon
and Mr. Delane that in her opinion a friendly communication might have
great influence on Lord Salisbury's course.

I therefore wrote to him (Lor