een in
opposition was ready to take, and did take, office. In the other three it
failed to do this (viz., in 1832, 1851, 1855), and the old ministry or a
modification of it returned to power. But in each of these three cases the
attempt of the opposition to form a government was not relinquished until
after such efforts had been made by its leaders to carry the conviction to
the world that all its available means of action were exhausted; and there
is no instance on record during the whole period (or indeed so far as Mr.
Gladstone remembers at an earlier date) in which a summary refusal given
on the instant by the leader was tendered as sufficient to release the
opposition from the obligations it had incurred. This is the more
remarkable because in two of the three instances the opposition had not,
in the same mode or degree as on Wednesday morning last, contributed by
concerted action to bring about the crisis. On the 7th of May 1832 the
opposition of the day carried in the House of Lords a motion which went
only to alter the order of the opening (and doubtless very important)
clauses of the Reform bill, but which the government of Lord Grey deemed
fatal to the integrity of the measure. Their resignation was announced,
and Lord Lyndhurst was summoned to advise King William iv. on the 9th of
May. On the 12th the Duke of Wellington was called to take a share in the
proceedings, the details of which are matters of history. It was only on
the 15th that the Duke and Lord Lyndhurst found their resources at an end,
when Lord Grey was again sent for, and on the 17th the Duke announced in
the House of Lords his abandonment of the task he had strenuously
endeavoured to fulfil. On the 20th February 1851 the government of Lord
Russell was defeated in the House of Commons on Mr. Locke King's bill for
the enlargement of the county franchise by a majority composed of its own
supporters. Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, being sent for by your Majesty
on the 22nd, observed that there were at the time three parties in the
House of Commons and that the ministry had never yet been defeated by his
political friends. He therefore counselled your Majesty to ascertain
whether the government of Lord Russell could not be strengthened by a
partial reconstruction, and failing that measure he engaged to use his own
best efforts to form an administration. That attempt at reconstruction (to
which nothing similar is now in question) did fail, and Lord Der