On December 3 Lord Randolph sailed in the _Rohilla_ for India. Since the beginning of history many travellers have visited the East. Few have neglected to record their adventures. But if the reader is inclined to follow the subject of this story into an atmosphere remote from that of Westminster his own letters will be found to supply an easy and connected narrative.[27] After several years of strife he entered upon a brief interval of peace. The battles of the Reform Bill had ended in a compromise far less unsatisfactory to Tory interests than could have been expected. The agitation which menaced the House of Lords was at an end. His dispute with Lord Salisbury was settled. The Conservative party had acclaimed the return of the prodigal son. The Aston riots were forgotten in his renewed friendship with Mr. Chamberlain. And as the English coast-line faded, a passing temper of tranquil benevolence led him to send through Wolff messages of amity to all his friends--‘even to the erring Gorst.’ CHAPTER IX THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT ‘Of this, however, I am well persuaded, that it is better to be impetuous than cautious. For Fortune is a woman who to be kept under must be beaten and roughly handled; and we see that she suffers herself to be more readily mastered by those who treat her so, than by those who are more timid in their approaches. And always, like a woman, she favours the young, because they are less scrupulous and fiercer, and command her with greater audacity.’--MACHIAVELLI: _The Prince_, chapter XXV. [Sidenote: 1885 ÆT. 36] This account, which has hitherto been concerned with the doings of Lord Randolph Churchill and the steps by which he attained power in his party and in Parliament, must now for a time be greatly extended. However strictly the thread of personal narrative be followed, biography broadens insensibly into history, and the career of a private member becomes a recognisable part of the fortunes of the nation. We enter upon a period of tumult and change. Within little more than a year two General Elections were fought and four separate Administrations took their seats on the Treasury Bench. In order to find an equal convulsion it is necessary to go back almost exactly a hundred years, to the time between the fall of Lord North’s Administration in 1782 and the final triumph of Mr. Pitt after his dissolution in 1784. In each period Ministries were constructed and fell like houses of cards; in each a new, young figure sprang suddenly into universal attention; in each, one of the historic parties in the State entered into a disastrous coalition; and the other, after taking office in a minority, secured a predominance which lasted for a generation.