tation, by
addressing public meetings from time to time at places with which
they were not connected. This method was peculiarly marked in the
case of Lord Salisbury as a peer, and this change on the part of
the leaders of opposition has induced Mr. Gladstone to deviate on
this critical occasion from the rule which he had (he believes)
generally or uniformly observed in former years. He is, as he has
previously apprised your Majesty, aware of the immense
responsibility he has assumed, and of the severity of just
condemnation which will be pronounced upon him, if he should
eventually prove to have been wrong. But your Majesty will be the
first to perceive that, even if it had been possible for him to
decline this great contest, it was not possible for him having
entered upon it, to conduct it in a half-hearted manner, or to
omit the use of any means requisite in order to place (what he
thinks) the true issue before the country.

Nature, however, served the royal purpose. Before his speech at Liverpool,
he was pressed to speak in the metropolis:--

As to my going to London,--he wrote in reply,--I have twice had my
chest rather seriously strained, and I have at this moment a sense
of internal fatigue within it which is quite new to me, from the
effects of a bad arrangement in the hall at Manchester. Should
anything like it be repeated at Liverpool to-morrow I shall not be
fit physically to speak for a week, if then. Mentally I have never
undergone such an uninterrupted strain as since January 30 of this
year. The forming and reforming of the government, the work of
framing the bills, and _studying the subject_ (which none of the
opponents would do), have left me almost stunned, and I have the
autumn in prospect with, perhaps, most of the work to do over
again if we succeed.

But this was not to be. The incomparable effort was in vain. The sons of
Zeruiah were too hard for him, and England was unconvinced.

The final result was that the ministerialists or liberals of the main body
were reduced from 235 to 196, the tories rose from 251 to 316, the
dissentient liberals fell to 74, and Mr. Parnell remained at his former
strength. In other words, the opponents of the Irish policy of the
government were 390, as against 280 in its favour; or a unionist majority
of 110. Once more no single party possessed an indepe