On February 11th Sir Charles noted, 'Harcourt has got frightened and has gone back,' fearing a division in the House of Commons on which Henry Richard and the peace men would either support the Government or abstain from voting, lest intervention should mean war. Thus party feeling fluctuated. On February 16th, 1877, Sir Charles's diary recorded that 'the popular name for our Front Bench with the London mob is "Bag and baggage Billy and his long-eared crew."' This showed that 'in the popular mind the personality of Mr. Gladstone had finally triumphed over that of Hartington.' At this moment Sir Charles's views coincided with those of Lord Hartington to the extent of being anti-Russian, and, as already seen, he was more drawn by personal feeling to him than to any of the various leaders. Mr. Forster and Mr. Goschen seemed to him inclined to what a letter of Harcourt's called "the old facing-both-ways style," and the magic of Mr. Gladstone's personality never exercised its spell on Dilke. But he liked Lord Hartington personally, and liked also Lord Hartington's ally, the Duchess of Manchester, who, he says-- 'used to try very hard to pick up political information for Lord Hartington; but her own strong Conservative prejudices and her want of clearness of head made her by no means a useful guide, and in fact the wonder to me always was to see how Hartington's strong common sense kept him from making the mistakes into which she always tried by her influence to press him.' That was written after an interview which Sir Charles had with her, at her request, on January 8th, 1877. The Duchess had read a report of a speech of his, in which 'I lectured on the Franco-German War, and condemned the taking of territory as bound to lead to further wars.' On February 10th he met her again to discuss the difficulties which were beginning to spring up, since Mr. Gladstone's sudden access of activity, as to the leadership of the party. In this matter Sir Charles kept himself 'absolutely independent, going now with one and now with the other, with mere regard to the opinions which they put forward.... I had a full knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes,' although, because he was not in complete agreement with either party among the Liberal leaders, he 'had not the complete confidence of either side.' This detachment of attitude adds the more weight to the judgment which is passed in the following detailed review of the situation as it was in the spring of 1877: