Now, gentlemen, I fear God and honour the Queen; I am heart and soul a Protestant; I am satisfied with our institutions, civil and religious, and believe that so are the people; but let them speak out for themselves on all these subjects, which I will submit to them with deliberate distinctness, despising your efforts to misrepresent my objects and principles, and await the decision with composure.” “Well, but, my Lord, how is this? Be so good as to tell us in detail what you are going to do if you should be continued in power; do not set us running about in search of shadows; do not amuse us with a series of dissolving views; give us something visible and tangible, in order that we may deal with it in our own way before the people.” “That is, in order that you may misrepresent it. No, my friends: you would have me do exactly what I will not do. It was by your own voluntary act that I am where I am. You should have considered consequences. I did, and have formed my purposes, and organised my plans. My character and principles are before the country, so are those of my colleagues. These principles I will reassert as emphatically as you please; and I pledge myself to carry them out in practice, if I have the opportunity.” “But you will delude the country: you will set them scampering in every direction after will-o’-the-wisps, while you and your myrmidons are quietly stealing their bread, and forging chains and dungeons for them.” “Well, gentlemen, tell the country as much: see whether they will believe you. It is a fair question between us. You say that yourselves, and your doings are thoroughly well known to them. Well, if that be so, go and prosper with the constituencies, for they will give you their confidence if they think that you deserve it. But observe, my good friends: if, thus knowing you and your doings, _those constituencies should decide against you_, and in favour of me, my friends, and our principles, even though I expressly withhold a distinct declaration of the way in which I purpose to act upon them, what will you _then_ say? That those whom they knew they reject, and have chosen others?” It is an ugly dilemma! “But, my Lord, you impute to us principles and purposes which we repudiate: we are _not_ wolves in sheep’s clothing; we are good, honest folk, the best friends the people ever had—in fact, their true, as you their false friends.” “Well, gentlemen, what is easier than to tell them so? You are only losing time yourselves, and making me lose precious time myself; for all our hands are full, having the Queen’s business to do in every quarter of the globe. Good morning, my friends, away to the constituencies.” On this, one may conceive that the colloquy ended, and the people’s imaginary deputation withdrew, with flushed faces, anxious brows, and disconcerted looks, to their council-chamber in Chesham Place. After a troubled silence, one lean flippant fellow