A more accurate observer, ‘I rather fancy,’ wrote Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P., ‘the Government look for it as a relief from their troubles.’ The last, and perhaps the most serious of all, was the manner in which they had allowed themselves to be outwitted by Russia in Afghanistan. This belief was generally entertained all over the land. Mr. Gladstone was glad to put an end to his perplexities by resigning office. The Queen offered to make him an Earl, which he had too much sense to accept—though in office no one was more ready to make peers of his friends. In his later years his trump card was an attack on the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury became Premier, all necessary business was quickly disposed of, and in the autumn a General Election took place. In the boroughs the Liberal losses were heavy; in the counties they increased their strength. One of Mr. Gladstone’s appeals to the country was sounded in his speech at Edinburgh to the electors of Midlothian. He passionately implored his party to hold together, in order, above all things, that they should return a Liberal majority so considerable as to make it independent of the Irish party. He expressed the hope that from one end of the country to the other there would not be a single representative returned to Parliament who would listen to any proposition tending to impair the visible empire. Whatever demands might be made on the part of Ireland, if they were to be entertained they must be subject to the condition that the union of the empire should be preserved. Mr. Parnell’s answer was to return eighty-six Home-Rulers for Ireland; Lord Salisbury remained Premier. Lord Shaftesbury wrote: ‘In a year or so we shall have Home Rule disposed of at all hazards to save us from hourly and daily bores.’ In the meanwhile the Conservatives held feebly to office till 1886, when in January Mr. Gladstone resumed office as Premier. CHAPTER XI. HOME RULE.