'Forster told us that he was starting for Ireland to see whether he could avoid some renewal of coercion; and Chamberlain and I told him that he _must_ avoid it. This was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand.' Sir Charles goes on to tell how he stayed for a time its development: 'On the night of May 13th, between one and two o'clock in the morning, I did a thing which many will say I ought not to have done--namely, went down to a newspaper office to suggest an article against the policy of another member of the Government. Under the circumstances, I think that I was justified. I was not a member of the Privy Council or of the Cabinet, and the interests of the party were at stake, as subsequent events well showed. There was no shade of private or personal interest in the matter. The effect of what I did was to stop the policy of which I disapproved for the year, and might easily have been to stop it for ever. I had found out in the course of the evening that Forster was in favour of a Coercion Bill, and that the Cabinet were likely to adopt it. I went down to the _Daily News_ office, and told Hill, not even telling Chamberlain until two years afterwards what I had done. The result of it was that the _Daily News_ had an article the next morning which smashed Forster's plan.' IV. Chamberlain had written on May 4th to Mrs. Pattison: "The charmed circle has been broken and a new departure made, which is an event in English political history." But although the circle was broken, only one man had found his way to the innermost ring; and in the composition of the Ministry the Radicals were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Such a situation did not lead to the stability of the Government, and by his reluctance in the admission of Radicalism to office Mr. Gladstone had created difficulties for himself. In the House his personal authority was overridden in a matter which came up at once. 'In the morning of May 3rd I received a note from Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Secretary of the Treasury, asking me to be at the House at two, as there would be trouble about Bradlaugh's application to affirm instead of take the oath. It had been decided by the Cabinet that "Freddy" Cavendish, [Footnote: Lord F. Cavendish was Financial Secretary to the Treasury.] who was leader of the House in the absence of the Ministers who had gone for re-election, should move for a Committee, and I spoke in support of that view.' Sir Charles never took part again in any debate upon this once famous struggle. He supported Mr. Gladstone's view in favour of allowing affirmation, but he did so without heartiness, disliking 'the trade of living on blatant atheism,' and finding in himself tendencies which led him to fear that he was 'clerically minded.' He had always an extreme dislike of talk or writing that offended legitimate susceptibilities.