was "disgraceful to the House of Commons,"
and denounced "the shameful and avowed conspiracy of the cabinet" against
the House of Lords. The latter expression was noticed by the chairman of
committee and withdrawn, though Mr. Gladstone himself thought it the more
allowable of the two.

In a letter to his brother-in-law, Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Gladstone
vindicated this transaction as follows:--

_July 26, '71._--I should like to assure myself that you really
have the points of the case before you. 1. Was it not for us an
indispensable duty to extinguish a gross, wide-spread, and most
mischievous illegality, of which the existence had become certain
and notorious? 2. Was it not also our duty to extinguish it in the
best manner? 3. Was not the best manner that which, (_a_) made the
extinction final; (_b_) gave the best, _i.e._ a statutory, title
for regulation prices; (_c_) granted an indemnity to the officers;
(_d_) secured for them compensation in respect of over-regulation
prices? 4. Did not the vote of the House of Lords stop us in this
best manner of proceeding? 5. Did it absolve us from the duty of
putting an end to the illegality? 6. What method of putting an end
to it remained to us, except that which we have adopted?

(M118) Sir Roundell Palmer wrote, "I have always thought and said that the
issuing of such a warrant was within the undoubted power of the crown....
It did and does appear to me that the course which the government took was
the least objectionable course that could be taken under the whole
circumstances of the case."(236) I can find nothing more clearly and more
forcibly said upon this case than the judgment of Freeman, the historian--a
man who combined in so extraordinary a degree immense learning with
precision in political thought and language, and added to both the true
spirit of manly citizenship:--

I must certainly protest against the word "prerogative" being
used, as it has so often been of late, to describe Mr. Gladstone's
conduct with regard to the abolition of purchase in the army. By
prerogative I understand a power not necessarily contrary to law,
but in some sort beyond law--a power whose source must be sought
for somewhere else than in the terms of an act of parliament. But
in abolishing purchase by a royal warrant Mr. Gladstone acted
strictly within the terms of an act of parliament, an act so