"We have lost it. We are only two
hundred and eighty at most. I do not think we are two hundred and fifty.
They are three hundred. Alderman Thompson has counted them. He says they
are two hundred and ninety-nine." This was the talk on our benches. I
wonder that men who have been long in Parliament do not acquire a better
coup d'oeil for numbers. The House, when only the Ayes were in it,
looked to me a very fair House,--much fuller than it generally is even
on debates of considerable interest. I had no hope, however, of three
hundred. As the tellers passed along our lowest row on the left hand
side the interest was insupportable,--two hundred and ninety-one,--two
hundred and ninety-two,--we were all standing up and stretching forward,
telling with the tellers. At three hundred there was a short cry of
joy,--at three hundred and two another,--suppressed however in a moment;
for we did not yet know what the hostile force might be. We knew,
however, that we could not be severely beaten. The doors were thrown
open, and in they came. Each of them, as he entered, brought some
different report of their numbers. It must have been impossible, as
you may conceive, in the lobby, crowded as they were, to form any exact
estimate. First we heard that they were three hundred and three; then
that number rose to three hundred and ten; then went down to three
hundred and seven. Alexander Barry told me that he had counted, and that
they were three hundred and four. We were all breathless with anxiety,
when Charles Wood, who stood near the door, jumped up on a bench and
cried out, "They are only three hundred and one." We set up a shout that
you might have heard to Charing Cross, waving our hats, stamping against
the floor, and clapping our hands. The tellers scarcely got through the
crowd; for the House was thronged up to the table, and all the floor
was fluctuating with heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might have
heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shouts
broke out, and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. And
the jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned
soul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off for the last
operation. We shook hands, and clapped each other on the back, and went
out laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby. And no sooner were
the outer doors opened than another shout answered that within the
House. All the passages, and the stai