"The right hon. baronet has said there has been no word of recantation. You have no right to ask me for any recantation. Since the 9th April you have no right to ask me for anything. If you have a legal disqualification, petition, lay it before the judges. When you ask me to make a statement, you are guilty of impertinence to me, of treason to the traditions of this House, and of impeachment of the liberties of the people." And the close--it cannot be called a peroration--makes no abatement of emphasis:-- "I ask you now, do not plunge me into a struggle I would shun. The law gives me no remedy if the House decides against me. Do not mock at the constituencies. If you place yourselves above the law, you leave me no course save lawless agitation, instead of reasonable pleading. It is easy to begin such a strife, but none knows how it would end.... You think I am an obnoxious man, and that I have no one on my side. If that be so, then the more reason that this House, grand in the strength of its centuries of liberty, should have now that generosity in dealing with one who to-morrow may be forced into a struggle for public opinion against it." Mr Gladstone followed with a carefully subdued speech, in which, however, he remarked: "Mr Bradlaugh is upon his trial before the House; but the House also, permit me to say it with great respect, is upon its trial," and he proceeded to cite against the opposition the authority of "Sir George Grey, who was an ornament of the House for fully forty years, and who has not ceased to take a lively interest in its proceedings. I hold in my hand his written opinion, expressed in the most decisive terms, and he has the fullest conviction that the opposition to the taking of the oath by Mr Bradlaugh ought not to be permitted by the Chair." He further bore laudatory witness to Bradlaugh's behaviour in the House:-- "Every man must in common fairness admit that Mr Bradlaugh is to be credited with the best and highest motives. He is under a _primâ facie_ and presumptive obligation and duty, having been elected by a constituency to present himself at the table as the only means of fulfilling his duty to them. On the other hand, I need not animadvert upon his conduct. It is generally admitted that his conduct while he sat on those benches was the conduct of a man of great ability, integrity, and honour." Incidentally, the Premier mentioned that the authority of Sir John Holker was with those who held that the House had no right to interfere; and he put to the Opposition, at some length, the plain logical outcome of their action, namely, that they were bound, in every case in which a member's opinions were known from any source to be irreligious, to refuse that member the oath. The argument was unanswerable; but it was not argument that was to be met. After a long debate the House divided, when 208 members voted for Northcote's motion, and only 175 against.