periods as to his contingent conduct, had conveyed a meaning to the House different from what he had intended.' Thus looked at his conduct might be explained to his entire vindication. Disraeli, however, still insisted that both Bentinck and himself had been also right in bringing the charge. The point before the House was Peel's general conduct. He had twice betrayed the party who had trusted his promises. Lord George said that to denounce men who had broken their pledges was a public duty. 'If the country could not place faith in the pledges of their representatives the authority of the House of Commons would fall.' However that might be the storm decided the wavering minds of the Tory army, and with it the fate of Sir Robert Peel. In voting against the Coercion Bill they would be voting against their own principles, and the utmost efforts were made to retain them in their allegiance. Persuasion and menace were alike unavailing. 'The gentlemen of England,' of whom it had once been Sir Robert's proudest boast to be the leader, declared against him. He was beaten by an overpowering majority, and his career as an English Minister was closed. Disraeli's had been the hand which dethroned him, and to Disraeli himself, after three years of anarchy and uncertainty, descended the task of again building together the shattered ruins of the Conservative party. Very unwillingly they submitted to the unwelcome necessity. Canning and the elder Pitt had both been called adventurers, but they had birth and connection, and they were at least Englishmen. Disraeli had risen out of a despised race; he had never sued for their favours; he had voted and spoken as he pleased, whether they liked it or not. He had advocated in spite of them the admission of the Jews to Parliament, and many of them might think that in his novels he had held the Peerage up to hatred. He was without Court favour, and had hardly a powerful friend except Lord Lyndhurst. He had never been tried on the lower steps of the official ladder. He was young too--only forty-two--after all the stir that he had made. There was no example of a rise so sudden under such conditions. But the Tory party had accepted and cheered his services, and he stood out alone among them as a debater of superior power. Their own trained men had all deserted them. Lord George remained for a year or two as nominal chief: but Lord George died; the Conservatives could only consolidate themselves under a real leader, and Disraeli was the single person that they had who was equal to the situation. Not a man on either side in the House was more than his match in single combat. He had overthrown Peel and succeeded to Peel's honours.