Meanwhile the second vote of censure upon the conduct of Egyptian affairs had been debated. On May 12 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach moved: ‘That this House regrets to find the course pursued by Her Majesty’s Government has not tended to promote the success of General Gordon’s mission and that even such steps as may be necessary to secure his personal safety are delayed.’ The attack was vigorously delivered. The Prime Minister’s reply was judged inadequate and disquieting, even by many of his own supporters. Mr. Forster assailed him during the debate harshly and sternly. The weight and earnestness of Lord Hartington alone retrieved Ministerial fortunes. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke (May 13) to a larger audience, according to the newspapers, than had gathered to hear any other speaker; and the benches, the gangways and the spaces below the bar and behind the Chair were all filled to overflowing. Despite the bitterness of the struggle in the National Union, the wrangles over the Reform Bill of almost nightly recurrence and the antagonisms which these had excited, the Conservative members broke into loud acclamation at his rising. Before he had spoken for a quarter of an hour he was sustained by the cheering of the whole party. He scourged Mr. Gladstone relentlessly. He applied to him the well-known story of the Duke of Wellington sitting down after making a speech on Reform amid a great buzz of conversation and, on asking the reason for the excitement, being told: ‘My Lord Duke, you have announced the fall of your Government.’ It was curious, he said, how different individuals appealed to the Prime Minister’s sympathies. ‘I compared his efforts in the cause of General Gordon with his efforts in the cause of Mr. Bradlaugh. If a hundredth part of those invaluable moral qualities bestowed upon the cause of a seditious blasphemer had been given to the support of a Christian hero, the success of Gordon’s mission would have been assured. But the finest speech he ever delivered in the House of Commons was in support of the seditious blasphemer; and the very worst he ever delivered, by common consent, was in the cause of the Christian hero.’ At this there was a great tumult.