LETTER TO MR CROKER. 435 



very distasteful. At the opening of the session 

 of 1848 he walked up to the head of the second 

 bench below the gangway on the Opposition side, 

 and thus significantly announced that he was no 

 longer the head of the Protectionist party. His 

 place was taken with apparent reluctance by Mr 

 Disraeli, who from that moment forward, until 

 he went to the Upper House, never ceased to 

 be the leader of the Conservative party in the 

 Commons. 



It was under these circumstances that Lord 

 George wrote from Welbeck, on October 5, 1847, 

 the followiner letter : — 



" My dear Mr Croker, — My services, such as 

 they are, shall always be at the command of any 

 one who, like yourself, can put the facts which I 

 am able to collect with more force and in a more 

 striking light before the world. 



" Virtually an uneducated man, never intended 

 or attracted by taste for a political life, in the 

 House of Commons only by a pure accident — in- 

 deed by an undesired and inevitable chance — I am 

 well aware of my own incapacity properly to fill 

 the station I have been thrust into. My sole ambi- 

 tion was to rally the broken and dispirited forces of 

 a betrayed and insulted party, and to avenge the 

 country gentlemen and landed aristocracy of Eng- 

 land upon the minister who, presuming upon their 

 weakness, falsely flattered himself that they could 



