n on May 30, and the next day he wished to speak but saw
no good opportunity. 'The emotions through which one passes, at least
through which I pass, in anticipating such an effort as this, are
painful and humiliating. The utter prostration and depression of spirit;
the deep sincerity, the burdensome and overpowering reality of the
feeling of mere feebleness and incapacity, felt in the inmost heart, yet
not to find relief by expression, because the expression of such things
goes for affectation,--these things I am unequal to describe, yet I have
experienced them now.' On June 3, the chance came. Here is his story of
the day: 'Began _le miei Prigioni_. West India meeting of members at one
at Lord Sandon's. Resolutions discussed and agreed upon; ... dined
early. Re-arranged my notes for the debate. Rode. House 5 to 1. Spoke my
first time, for 50 minutes. My leading desire was to benefit the cause
of those who are now so sorely beset. The House heard me very kindly,
and my friends were satisfied. Tea afterwards at the Carlton.' The
speech was an uncommon success. Stanley, the minister mainly concerned,
congratulated him with more than those conventional compliments which
the good nature of the House of Commons expects to be paid to any decent
beginner. 'I never listened to any speech with greater pleasure,' said
Stanley, himself the prince of debaters and then in the most brilliant
part of his career; 'the member for Newark argued his case with a
temper, an ability, and a fairness which may well be cited as a good
model to many older members of this House.' His own leader, though he
spoke later, said nothing in his speech about the new recruit, but two
days after Mr. Gladstone mentioned that Sir R. Peel came up to him and
praised Monday night's affair. King William wrote to Althorp: 'he
rejoices that a young member has come forward in so promising a manner,
as Viscount Althorp states Mr. W. E. Gladstone to have done.'[58]

Apart from its special vindication in close detail of the state of
things at Vreedenhoop as being no worse than others, the points of the
speech on this great issue of the time were familiar ones. He confessed
with shame and pain that cases of cruelty had existed, and would always
exist, under the system of slavery, and that this was 'a substantial
reason why the British legislature and public should set themselves in
good earnest to provide for its extinction.' He admitted, too, that we
had not fulfilled