the opinion of the whole world)--not about what people will say, but
about what you think, that I am driven distracted by your tone. I
beg you to think that I do not consider myself in this at all,
except that I should wish to so act as to act rightly. Personal
policy I should not consider for myself. My seat here will go,
either way, for certain, as it is a Tory seat now, and will become a
more and more Tory seat with each fresh registration. If I should
make any attempt to remain at all in political life, I do not think
that my finding another seat would depend on the course I take in
this present Irish matter. This thing will be forgotten in the
common resistance of the Radicals to Tory coercion. I think, then,
that by the nature of things I am not influenced by selfish
considerations. As to inclination, I feel as strongly as any man can
as to the _way_ in which Mr. Gladstone has done this thing, and all
my inclination is therefore to follow you, where affection also
leads. But if this is to be--what it will be--a fight, not as to the
way and the man, and the past, but as to the future, the second
reading will be a choice between acceptance of a vast change which
has in one form or the other become inevitable, and on the other
side Hartington-Goschen opposition, with coercion behind it. I am
only a camp follower now, but my place is not in the camp of the
Goschens, Hartingtons, Brands, Heneages, Greys. I owe something,
too, to my constituents. There can be no doubt as to the feeling of
the rank and file, from whom I have received such hearty support and
following. If I voted against the second reading, unable as I should
be honestly to defend my vote as you could and would honestly defend
yours, by saying that all turned on the promise as to the retention
of the Irish members, I should be voting without a ground or a
defence, except that of personal affection for you, which is one
which it is wholly impossible to put forward. If I voted against the