The Government was in alarm for Sir T. Baring's seat; Colonel Grey, Lord Grey's son, was brought down as their candidate. Isaac Disraeli seems to have stood aloof and to have left his son to his own resources. Disraeli himself did not mean to lose for want of displaying himself. He drove into Wycombe in an open carriage and four, dressed with his usual extravagance--laced shirt, coat with pink lining, and the morning cane which had so impressed the Gibraltar subalterns. Colonel Grey had arrived on his first visit to the borough, and Disraeli seized the opportunity of his appearance for an impromptu address. 'All Wycombe was assembled,' he wrote, describing the scene. 'Feeling it was the crisis, I jumped upon the portico of the 'Red Lion' and gave it them for an hour and a quarter. I can give you no idea of the effect. I made them all mad. A great many absolutely cried. I never made so many friends in my life, and converted so many enemies. All the women are on my side, and wear my colours--pink and white.' Colonel Grey told Bulwer that he never heard a finer command of words. Wycombe was prouder than ever of its brilliant neighbour; but of course he failed. Hume had shaken the Radicals by withdrawing his support before the election; Government influence and the Carringtons did the rest. Disraeli, however, had made a beginning and never let himself be disheartened. This election was in June. On August 16 Parliament was dissolved, and he offered himself a second time to the new constituency. He invited them, in his address, to have done with 'political jargon,' to 'make an end of the factious slang of Whig and Tory, two names with one meaning, and only to delude the people,' and to 'unite in forming a great national party.' 'I come before you,' he said, 'to oppose this disgusting system of factions; I come forward wearing the badge of no party and the livery of no faction. I seek your suffrages as an independent neighbour.... I will withhold my support from every Ministry which will not originate some great measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders.' This too was not to serve him. Party government may be theoretically absurd when the rivalry is extended from measures to men. When the functions of an Opposition are not merely to resist what it disapproves, but to dethrone the other side, that they may step into its place, we have a civil war in the midst of us, and a civil war which can never end because the strength of the combatants is periodically renewed at the hustings. Lord Lyndhurst and the Duke of Wellington were by this time interested in Disraeli.