A little prior to this speech Mr. Gladstone had secured a follower in the person of Mr. Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh, as private secretary. ‘From what I know of Mr. Gladstone’s character,’ writes Mr. Northcote to his father, ‘there is no single statesman of the present day to whom I would more gladly attach myself; and I should think, from the talent he has shown for business since he came into office, there is no one more likely to retain his place unless any revolution takes place.’ To another friend, Mr. Northcote, on his acceptance of the office, writes: ‘With any other man than Gladstone I might have hesitated longer. But he is one whom I respect beyond measure; he stands almost alone as the representative of principles with which I cordially agree; and as a man of business, and one who, humanly speaking, is sure to rise, he is pre-eminent.’ A little later Mr. Northcote writes to a lady: ‘I look upon him’ (Gladstone) ‘as the representative of the party scarcely developed as yet, though secretly forming, which will stand by all that is dear and sacred, in my estimation, in the struggle which will come ere very long between good and evil, order and disorder, the Church and the world; and I see a very small band collecting around him, and ready to fight manfully under his leading.’ In a letter to a friend, Mr. Gladstone thus explains his retirement from office: ‘My whole purpose was to place myself in a position in which I should be free to consider my course without being liable to any just suspicion on the ground of personal interest. It is not profane if I say, “With a great price obtained I this freedom.” The political association in which I stood was to me, at the time, the Alpha and Omega of public life. The Government of Sir Robert Peel was believed to be of immovable strength. My place, as President of the Board of Trade, was at the very kernel of its most interesting operations . . . I felt myself open to the charge of being opinionated and wanting in deference to really great authorities, and I could not but see that I should be evidently regarded as fastidious and fanciful, fitter for a dreamer, or possibly a schoolman, than for the active purposes of public life in a busy and moving age.’ While at the Board of Trade Mr. Gladstone found time to devote himself as ardently as ever to ecclesiastical subjects. He was one of the party supremely interested in the establishment of an Anglican Bishop at Jerusalem. Lord Shaftesbury describes how, in connection with the event at a dinner given by Baron Bunsen, ‘he’ (Gladstone) ‘stripped himself of a part of his Puseyite garment, and spoke like a pious man.’ Bunsen, writing of Gladstone’s speech, says: ‘Never was heard a more exquisite speech: it flowed like a gentle and translucent stream. . . . We drove back to town in the clearest starlight, Gladstone continuing, with unabated animation, to pour forth his harmonious thoughts in melodious tones.’