Whatever might be his faults he was no paltry fortune-hunter. He trusted to himself, and only himself. He did not sit down upon his disappointments. The press at any rate was open to him. He wrote incessantly, 'passing days in constant composition.' In the season he was always in London; in the winter either at Bradenham or at some quiet place by himself, riding for health and 'living solely on snipes.' Determined to be distinguished, he even made a show, and not a bad one, in the hunting field. Writing from Southend in 1834, he says, 'Hunted the other day with Sir H. Smythe's hounds, and though not in pink was the best mounted man in the field, riding an Arabian mare, which I nearly killed--a run of thirty miles, and I stopped at nothing.' It was as a politician that he was desiring to keep himself before men's eyes, if not in Parliament yet as a political writer; his pen was busy with a 'Vindication of the British Constitution,' but he meant also to be known for the manly qualities which Englishmen respect. Public events meantime hastened on. In England after each rush in the direction of Liberalism there is always a reaction. Within two years of the passing of the Reform Bill Lord Grey and his friends had disgusted the Radicals in Parliament. The working men, finding that they had been fed with chaff instead of corn, had turned to Chartism. The Tories closed up their broken ranks. The king dismissed the Ministers, and sent to Rome for Peel to take the helm. The step itself may have been premature; but Sir Robert was able to take a commanding position before the country, and form a party strong enough to hold the Whigs in check if too weak to prevent their returning to office. Disraeli, though he never much liked Peel, had found by this time that there was no place in Parliament for a man who had a position to make for himself, unless he joined one party or the other. He swallowed his pride, probably on the advice of Lyndhurst, with whom he was now on intimate terms. The cant of Radicalism was distasteful to him. The Whigs were odious. He made up his mind to enlist under Peel. In the spring of 1835 Lord Melbourne came back in alliance with O'Connell, while the world was ringing with the Rathcormack massacre. Thirteen lives had been lost, and 'something was to be done' for the pacification of Ireland. 'O'Connell is so powerful,' wrote Disraeli, 'that he says he will be in the Cabinet. How can the Whigs submit to this? It is the Irish Catholic party that has done all this mischief.' O'Connell was not taken into the Cabinet, but under the new arrangement would be more powerful than if restrained by office. Disraeli, who had shown in 'Popanilla' what he thought about the English administration of that unfortunate island, had said openly that large changes were needed there, but it was another thing to truckle to anarchy and threats of rebellion. [Sidenote: SPEECH AT TAUNTON]