'At the end of the year I had letters describing the state of things in England from Harcourt, Chamberlain, and Adam. Chamberlain wrote: "Things look bad for the Tories. We shall have a majority at the next election. I feel confident." Adam wrote: "As things are at present, we shall have a majority independent of Home Rulers." Harcourt wrote that he was unusually dull and stupid: "I feel as if the soul of Northcote had transmigrated into me, and, if only I had a flaxen beard, I am sure I should make one of his Midland speeches to admiration.... I really find nothing new to say. Of course, there is the old story of Afghanistan, but the latter is already discounted, and it is rather a ticklish question. I never felt it so difficult to mix a prescription good for the present feeling of the constituencies.... Depend upon it, if we are to win (as we shall), it will not be on some startling cry, but by the turning over to us of that floating mass of middle votes which went over to the Tories last time, and will come back from them in disgust at the next election. It is much easier to persuade the public that the Government are duffers than that we are conjurers. I shall therefore ... be dull and safe, and not overabusive. That, at least, is my diagnosis of the treatment the patient requires just now.... Not having materials for one speech, I have got to make a second. I must trust to the newspaper abuse of the first to supply me with materials for the second."' Sir William Harcourt was too diffident, as his brilliant speeches at Oxford and elsewhere, full of epigrams, had more effect on the electorate than any others--not even excepting Mr. Gladstone's speeches in his Midlothian campaign. There is no suggestion in the correspondence of the ferment which was working in Midlothian. Mr. Gladstone was apart from both Whigs and Radicals in these days. So closed the last years of Sir Charles's second Parliament. He had played in it a commanding part in debate upon matters of war and of foreign policy without abating his activity in domestic politics, such as the franchise, or flogging in the army, which he helped finally to abolish. No man could well seem to have fewer enemies or more friends. CHAPTER XX THE FORMATION OF A MINISTRY I. By the close of 1879 the Beaconsfield Administration was deeply discredited. The year had opened with the disaster in the Zulu War at Isandhlwana; in September came the tragedy at Kabul, when Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff were slain by a sudden uprising of the tribesmen; and though Sir Frederick Roberts fought his way into the Afghan capital on October 12th, it was only to be beleaguered within the fortifications of Sherpur. The European situation Sir Charles described to his constituents before the Session of 1880 opened: