scussion; intimated that the Duke of Wellington had surrendered
his opinion (I think) upon the boundary question; and he referred
to the change in his own views, and said that in future he
questioned whether he could undertake the defence of the corn laws
on principle. His words were addressed to a sympathising hearer. My
speeches in the House had already excited dissatisfaction if not
dismay.

Then came something about the preservation of the two bishoprics in
North Wales.[158] To Mr. Gladstone's surprise, Peel reckoned this a more
serious matter, as it involved a practical course. After much had been
said on the topic, Mr. Gladstone asked for a day or two to consider the
question. 'I have to consider with God's help by Monday whether to enter
the cabinet or to retire altogether: at least such is probably the
second alternative.' He wished to consult Hope and Manning, and they,
upon discussion, urged that the point was too narrow on which to join
issue with the government. This brought him round. 'I well remember,' he
says of this early case of compromise, 'that I pleaded against them that
I should be viewed as a traitor, and they observed to me in reply that I
must be prepared for that if necessary, that (and indeed I now feel) in
these times the very wisest and most effective servants of any cause
must necessarily fall so far short of the popular sentiment of its
friends, as to be liable constantly to incur mistrust and even abuse.
But patience and the power of character overcome all these difficulties.
I am certain that Hope and Manning in 1843 were not my tempters but
rather my good angels.'[159]

Peel had been in parliament as long, and almost as long in office, as
Mr. Gladstone had lived, but experience of public life enlarges the man
of high mind, and Peel, while perhaps he wondered at his junior's bad
sense of proportion, was the last man to laugh at force of sincerity
and conscience. Men of the other sort, as he knew, were always to be had
for the asking. 'He spoke again of the satisfaction of his colleagues,
and even said he did not recollect former instances of a single vacancy
in a cabinet, on which there was an entire concurrence. I repeated what
I had said of his and their most indulgent judgment and took occasion
distinctly to apologise for my blunder, and the consequent embarrassment
which I caused to him in Feb. 1842, on the corn scale.'[160]

PARL