He had already put his
resignation into the hands of Her Majesty, and Her Majesty had
graciously accepted it. He was very old, and felt that the time had
come in which it behoved him to retire into that leisure which he
thought he had, perhaps, earned. He had hoped to carry this bill as
the last act of his political life; but he was too old, too stiff, as
he said, in his prejudices, to bend further than he had bent already,
and he must leave the completion of the matter in other hands. Her
Majesty had sent for Mr. Gresham, and Mr. Gresham had already seen
Her Majesty. Mr. Gresham and his other colleagues, though they
dissented from the clause which had been carried by the united
efforts of gentlemen opposite to him, and of gentlemen below him on
his own side of the House, were younger men than he, and would, for
the country's sake,--and for the sake of Her Majesty,--endeavour
to carry the bill through. There would then, of course, be a
dissolution, and the future Government would, no doubt, depend on
the choice of the country. From all which it was understood that Mr.
Gresham was to go on with the bill to a conclusion, whatever might be
the divisions carried against him, and that a new Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs must be chosen.
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