Gladstone, ‘think that the narrowing of the party by the severance or reduction of one wing is also the crippling of the party.’ Mr. Gladstone had, as he himself put it, ‘felt it his duty to put Liberal candidates in possession of some means of meeting statements’ as to his past connection with the Tory party. The particular remark which elicited this letter was made by Mr. Chatterton, the Tory candidate for the Crewe division. It was that ‘in his fiftieth year Mr. Gladstone was in full sympathy with the Tory party.’ Mr. Gladstone, in his letter, put forward ten propositions: ‘It is true that down to the year 1839, when I was twenty-nine years old, I might fairly be called a Tory of the Tories in questions relating to the Church. (2) It is untrue that even at that time I could justly be so described in other questions. (3) I am not aware that after 1839, or, at all events, after 1841, I could justly be described, even in Church questions, as a Tory of the Tories, or perhaps as a Tory at all. (4) In 1843 I was denounced in the House of Lords as being disloyal to the principles of Protection. (5) In 1849–50 I assisted to the best of my power the Government of Naples. (6) In 1851, in company with the Peelites, the Irish Roman Catholics, and the group led by Mr. Cobden, I actively resisted both Whigs and Tories, but the last especially, in defence of religious liberty, on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. (7) Unquestionably I differed strongly from the first Government of Lord Palmerston in 1855–8, on the question of peace, of foreign policy, of finance, and of divorce. The last was not a party question. On the other three I believe that my opinions were, as they are now, practically the opinions of the Liberal party. (8) Lord Derby sent me to the Ionian Islands in 1858, in precisely the same sense as that in which the Government of 1868–74 sent Lord Iddesleigh to America. (9) In company with Lord Russell and Mr. Milner Gibson, I gave the vote in 1858 on the Conspiracy Bill which brought in the Tories. Like Lord Russell, after doing this, I knew it to be my duty to give the Tories fair-play and such support as was equitable until positive cause of difference should arise. (10) Before their Italian policy was made public, I declined to join in the vote of want of confidence which removed them from office. But a few weeks later, when the volume containing it was published, I intimated in Parliament that had I known that policy at the time I should have pursued a different course.’ ‘So much,’ adds Mr. Gladstone, ‘for my Toryism down to 1859.’