JET. 44.] PROSPECTS OF THE OPPOSITION. 453 



single point viz., the management of the House of 

 Commons is one which we must consider betimes, 

 if we look at any possibility of our being called upon 

 to undertake the Administration. 



" After thinking much upon the subject, I am satis- 

 fied that the lead there must really and effectively, if 

 not nominally, be in your hands; and this it can only 

 be by your being a member of the Government. I 

 should be the last man to advise you to give up the 

 splendid, and, what is more, the certain, advantages 

 which you must command in your profession. No 

 advantage to a new Government could justify me in 

 urging such a sacrifice. But it is not necessary. Lord 

 Mansfield, Thurlow, and Wedderburn, were all in suc- 

 cession the chief supports of the Administration with 

 which they were connected. But in office you must 

 be, or the Government, I am persuaded, could not go on. 

 Nobody disapproves more than I do though I am not 

 sure I may not at times have fallen into that error 

 myself the language of those who talk of the impos- 

 sibility of forming an Administration in the House of 

 Commons. When we consider who have been minis- 

 ters for the last fifteen years, it is really a libel on our 

 party, and even on the House of Commons itself. But 

 , if you adhere to your present decision, it will be lan- 

 guage which, though I may not hold it, I must acknow- 

 ledge to be true. I will not say beforehand what a 

 sense of duty or the opinion of my friends may or may 

 not induce me to undertake ; but it would require all 

 the power of these, in a degree which I cannot before- 

 hand imagine possible, to prevail on me to embark in 

 a Government with which you were not connected in 

 office. This, therefore, I consider as a sine qua non ; 



