gnation. But
in the Cabinet I do _not_ think his position improved, rather
the reverse. The policy of the timid and the shabby and the
ambitious and the cunning and the illiberal triumphed; and all
experience teaches me that John, having made a great sacrifice,
will be expected to make every other that _apparent
expediency_ may induce his colleagues to require. He will always
be pressed and urged and taunted with obstinacy, etc., and told
that he will ruin his reputation, if for the sake of one question
on which he may happen to differ with them, he exposed his country
to the awful danger of a change of Ministry.... It is for the
avowed purpose of carrying on the war with vigour that Reform and
other things are thrown aside. The Ministry has not asked the House
of Commons or the country to declare, but has declared itself
indispensable to the country, and the only possible Ministry
competent to carry on the war. But if it has already proved, and if
it daily goes on to prove, itself incompetent in time of peace to
carry on measures of domestic improvement, and more specially
incompetent either to prepare for or prosecute a great war, has
John done right, has he done what the welfare of the country
requires, in lending himself so long as its indispensable prop? It
is not incompetent from want of ability, but of unity.... He is
considered by them to have wedded himself to them for better for
worse more closely than ever by the withdrawal of Reform.... The
wretched fears and delays and doubts which have, I firmly believe,
first produced this war, and then made its beginning of so little
promise, have had no effect as warnings for the future.... There
will probably soon be great pressure put upon him to take
office.... Nothing but the fact of his having no office, of his
only part in the Government being _work,_ has made him
struggle along a very dangerous way unattacked and unhurt.... With
his opinion of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry he would be _doing
wrong,_ though from no worse motives than excess of deference to
those with whom he acts, were he, after giving up Reform, to give
up the degree of independence which he now has.... You can now
partly conceive how doubtful I feel (and he does too) whether the
withdrawal of Reform will ultimately be an advantage, though it is
obvious th