he increasing number of the disaffected, all this
seemed to extinguish hope, and after what had been said about crossing
Rubicons and burning boats, most thought no course open but resignation.
They might appeal to the country. But Mr. Brand, the expert whip, told the
prime minister that he felt so strongly on the impolicy of dissolution
that he could not bring himself to take a part in it. The proceeding would
be unpopular with their own friends, who had been put to great expense at
their election only a few months before. It would, moreover, break the
party, because at an election they would have to bring out men of more
extreme views to fight the whigs and liberals who had deserted them on
reform, and who might thus be driven permanently to the other side. Such
were the arguments, though Mr. Gladstone seems not to have thought them
decisive. At hardly any crisis in his life, I think, did Mr. Gladstone
ever incline to surrender, short of absolute compulsion. To yield was not
his temper. When he looked back upon this particular transaction in later
years, he blamed himself and his colleagues for too promptly acquiescing
in advice to throw down the reins.

I incline to believe that we too readily accepted our defeat by an
infinitesimal majority, as a ground for resignation. There were at
least four courses open to us: first, resignation; secondly,
dissolution; thirdly, to deny the finality of the judgment and
reverse the hostile vote on report; fourthly, to take shelter
under a general vote of confidence which Mr. Crawford, M.P. for
the City of London, was prepared to move. Of these, the last was
the worst, as disparaging to political character. Lord Russell,
secretly conscious, I suppose, that he had arrived at the last
stage of his political existence, and desirous that it should not
be forcibly abbreviated, inclined to adopt it. Granville and I
were so decidedly set against it that we allowed ourselves, I
think, to be absorbed in its defeat, and set up against it what
was undoubtedly the readiest and simplest expedient, namely,
immediate withdrawal. To dissolve would have been a daring act, an
appeal from a shuffling parliament to an unawakened people. Yet it
is possible, even probable, that such an appeal, unhesitatingly
made, would have evoked a response similar, though not equal, to
that of 1831. Or again, a re-trial of the question, with