a call of
the House, would in all likelihood have resulted in victory. By
our retirement we opened the door for that series of curious
deceptions and intrigues within the tory party, which undoubtedly
accelerated the arrival of household suffrage.

(M60) Lord Russell tendered their resignation to the Queen, then far away
at Balmoral. The Queen received the communication with the greatest
concern, and asked them to reconsider. "The state of Europe," she said,
"was dangerous; the country was apathetic about reform; the defeat had
only touched a matter of detail; the question was one that could never be
settled unless all sides were prepared to make concessions." In London
three or four days were passed in discussing the hundred ingenious
futilities by which well-meaning busy-bodies on all such occasions
struggle to dissolve hard facts by soft words. In compliance with the
Queen's request, the cabinet reopened their own discussion, and for a day
or two entertained the plan of going on, if the House would pass a general
vote of confidence. Mr. Gladstone, as we have seen, was on the morrow of
the defeat for resignation, and from the first he thought ill of the new
plan. The true alternatives were to try either a fresh parliament or a
fresh ministry. Bright--not then a member of the government--wrote to Mr.
Gladstone (June 24) in strong terms in favour of having a new parliament.
Mr. Brand, he says, "makes no allowance for the force of a moral contest
through the country for a great principle and a great cause. Last Easter
showed how much feeling your appeals could speedily arouse.... I do not
believe in your being beaten. Besides there is something far worse than a
defeat, namely to carry on your government with a party poisoned and
enfeebled by the baseness of the forty traitors [elsewhere in the same
letter called the 'forty thieves']. In great contingencies something must
be risked. You will have a great party well compacted together, and great
future. Mr. Brand's figures should be forgotten for the moment.... You
must not forget the concluding passage of your great speech on the second
reading of the bill. Read it again to nerve you to your great duty." The
Duke of Argyll was strong in the same sense. He saw no chance of
"conducting opposition with decent sincerity or possible success, except
in a parliament in which we know who are our friends and who are our
enemies on this question." In the end resig