'On December 2nd I got a note from Harcourt--to ask what I had been doing with the British Constitution in his absence. On December 8th I had a serious grumble from Spencer from Dublin as to my having settled with Salisbury who were to be the Irish Commissioners, and only asked the Irish Government after the thing was done. I had undoubtedly been wrong, and can only say that Spencer let me off cheaply....' Sir Charles's holiday in the South of France, whither he went on December 17th, was broken by copies of a correspondence between Lord Spencer and Lord Salisbury, the latter writing 'with much sound and fury' on the question of another Conservative Boundary Commissioner for Ireland. 'Lord Salisbury had always been so extremely soft and sweet to me that it was a revelation to find him writing to Spencer in the style of Harcourt or of Chamberlain when in a passion.' 'Sir Stafford Northcote also wrote to me upon the subject, and passing on to Scotland in his letter, added, "It is, I think, understood that we may have a free fight over the grouping of Scotch boroughs." This question of the Scotch boroughs was afterwards referred to me and Charles Dalrymple (M.P. for Buteshire), and I gave Dalrymple one or two changes that he wanted, which, I think, did not matter.' Such difficulties were few and subordinate. The scheme was settled in principle, for after the Arlington Street compact 'I wrote the letter to the Boundary Commissioners the same night, and after I had signed their instructions on December 5th I had a pause in my Redistribution work for some time.' But at the end of December Lord Hartington wrote: 'I think it will take two of us all our time to work the Bill through; and you know so much more about it than anybody else that you must necessarily take the greatest share of the details'; and ended with an invitation to Sir Charles to stay at Hardwick to do some preliminary work on the measure. CHAPTER XXXVII FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN 1884 Mrs. Mark Patterson I. During 1884 'I warned Lord Granville, Mr. Gladstone, Fitzmaurice, and Childers, that I should not in future be able to speak on foreign affairs on account of the terrible work of the Redistribution Bill, and of the Royal Commission,' for 'I was now so busy with the preparation for working the Redistribution Bill through the House, and with the Report of the Royal Commission, that I objected to receiving Foreign Office papers not sent to other members of the Cabinet ... but Lord Granville insisted that I should still see them, and circulated a letter to that effect.'