For reasons which have been already given, the times were not propitious for a coalition of this sort. The Queen had therefore no option but to send for Lord Derby, and ask him to form a Protectionist Ministry. She was, of course, deeply sensible of the fact that by recent declarations in favour of Protection, no Ministry of which he was the head could command the confidence of the nation. Indeed, Lord Derby himself was aware of this. But as his followers had joined Lord Palmerston in ejecting the Whigs, he felt that he could not in honour shrink from the embarrassing task of forming a Cabinet to govern the country, with a certain majority against him in the House of Commons, and a dubious majority at his back in the House of Lords. A futile attempt was made to induce Lord Palmerston to join the Tory Cabinet--the Queen agreeing to accept him as a Minister, provided he did not go to the Foreign Office, and was not entrusted with the leadership of the House of Commons. Palmerston refused all Lord Derby’s overtures, because he did not care to cast in his lot with a Party which was committed to Protection. One Tory leader, however, shared none of Lord Derby’s fears for the future. Writing in his Diary on the 20th of February, Lord Malmesbury says:--“Went to Disraeli’s after breakfast, and found him in a state of delight at the idea of coming into office. He said he ‘felt just like a young girl going to her first ball,’ constantly repeating, ‘now we have got a _status_.’” The chief appointments in the new Cabinet were as follows:--The Earl of Derby, Prime Minister; Lord St. Leonards, Lord Chancellor; Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, as to which the joke current in Society at the time was “that Benjamin’s mess will be five times as great as the others;”[50] the Earl of Malmesbury, Foreign Secretary; Sir John Pakington, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Spencer Walpole, Home Secretary; Mr. Herries, President of the Board of Control;[51] Earl of Lonsdale, Lord Privy Seal. The only members of the Cabinet who had ever held office before were Lord Derby and Lord Lonsdale, and the country was anxious as to the competence of a Cabinet of novices to carry on the Government of the Queen. “The new Government,” writes Mr. Greville, “is treated with great contempt, and many of the appointments are pitiable.” Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in a letter to Sir Edmund Head, remarks that “the chief effect of the change has been that Graham and Cardwell have come to sit among the Whigs, while Gladstone and Sidney Herbert sit below the gangway.”[52] As for Lord Palmerston--though he got Lady Palmerston to invite Lord John Russell to one of her parties, and otherwise showed in public some desire to be reconciled to him--he told Lord Clarendon privately that “John Russell had given him his independence, and he meant to avail himself of that advantage.”[53] Moreover, to add to Lord Derby’s perplexities, there soon arose great complaints against Mr.