'In another letter (May 21st) Chamberlain said: "Your note makes
everything right between us. Let us agree to consider everything
which is said and done for the next few weeks as a dream.

'"I suppose the party must go to smash and the Tories come in. After
a few years those of us who remain will be able to pick up the
pieces. It is a hard saying, but apparently Mr. Gladstone is bent on
crowning his life by the destruction of the most devoted and loyal
instrument by which a great Minister was ever served." [Footnote: In
a letter of January 2nd, 1886, Lord Hartington, writing to Lord
Granville, said: "Did any leader ever treat a party in such a way as
he (Mr. Gladstone) has done?" (_Life of Granville_, vol. ii., p.
478).]

'On June 2nd Chamberlain wrote: "I suppose we shall have a
dissolution immediately and an awful smash." On that day I spoke on
the Irish Registration Bills in the House of Commons--almost the
only utterance which I made in the course of this short Parliament.

'On June 4th Sir Robert Sandeman, who had sought an interview with
me to thank me for what I had done previously about the assigned
districts on the Quetta frontier, came to see me, to tell me the
present position and to discuss with me Sir Frederick Roberts's
plans for defence against the eventuality of a Russian advance.'

The defeat of the Home Rule Bill by a majority of thirty came on June
8th, and the General Election followed. [Footnote: See Morley's _Life of
Gladstone_, vol. iii., p. 337, which gives one o'clock on the morning of
the 8th as the time of decision. Sir Charles's Memoir contains among its