The long period of Whig rule, which had lasted with the single break of a few months in 1852 since the year 1846, was at length terminated by the return of Lord Derby's second administration to power in 1858, and Lord Hardwicke took office as Lord Privy Seal with a seat in the Cabinet. His energy and professional zeal, however, had been fully employed since 1856 as the Chairman of a Royal Commission which had been appointed to inquire into the question of the manning of the Navy. The negative results of the expedition to the Baltic during the late war with Russia had brought the question into public notice, and the great changes which were taking place in the design and construction of ships of war by the invention of the screw propeller and the evolution of the ironclad battleship had given a more than ordinary urgency to the question of national defence. Lord Hardwicke entered upon his duties with the greatest energy. One of the instructions to the Commission was to 'determine in case of need the means necessary to man at short notice thirty or forty sail of the line.' In a speech at Cambridge in 1858 he pointed out some facts regarding the Navy of which the public were quite ignorant, and which pointed to a serious decrease in the naval power of the country which caused much uneasiness. Lord Hardwicke reminded his hearers that though during the period of the American, Revolutionary, and Napoleonic wars we had maintained an establishment of from 105,000 to 140,000 seamen and marines, and had experienced little difficulty in manning a fleet of ships of the line which averaged 120 sail, yet during the recent war with Russia the Admiralty had with difficulty found crews for the thirty-three vessels which took part in the operations in the Baltic. 'These ships,' he said, 'went to sea in such a condition as to inflict a positive injustice on the brave officers in command of them, and if it had not been for the efficiency of the latter and the way their crews were disciplined, they might as well have stopped at home.' Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort both took great interest in this important question, and the Prince in the following letter showed his practical knowledge of the subject by urging the importance of the training-ship as a source of an efficient personnel for the Navy. * * * * * 'My DEAR LORD HARDWICKE, 'In your position as chairman of the Manning Committee I wish to draw your attention to a point, which I consider of the utmost importance.