604

LIF

COBDEN,

[Bat

1858. gantly welcomed, and we talked as nsusl for a few pint
#1. 85. on everything but what I went about. At length I rok?
the ice in this way. ‘You have acted in so manly and M88”
nanimons a manner in pressing me to take office in YOU
Cabinet, that I feel bound to come and talk to you without
reserve upon the subject. My case is this, For the Inst
twelve years I have been the systematic and constent
assailant of the principle on which your foreign policy ha$
been carried on. I believed you to be warlike, intermeddling
and quarrelsome, and that your policy was calculated ul
embroil us with foreign nations. At the same time I h8%°
expressed a general want of confidence in your domestic
politics. Now I may have been altogether wrong in my
views ; it is possible I may have been, but I put it candidly
to you whether it ought to be in your Cabinet, whilst holdin8
a post of high honour and emolument derived from you, thet
I should make the first avowal of a change of opinion respect
ing your public policy? Should I not expose myself 2
severe suspicions, and deservedly so, if I were under thes
circumstances to step from an Atlantic steamer into yOUr
Cabinet? Understand, I beg, that I have no persons!
feelings which prevent me from accepting your offer. 1
have opposed you as the supposed representative of what 1
believed to be dangerous principles. If I have ever bee”
personally offensive in my opposition it was not intended;
and assuredly you never gave me any justification for such #
course.’

“In reply he disclaimed any feelings of a personal kind, and
said that even if there had been any personalities, they neve”
ought to be remembered for three months; and he added
in & laughing way that he thought Gibson had hit him quit?
as hard as I had. Then he commenced to combat my objec”
tions, and to offer, with apparently great sincerity, a variety
of arguments 4c show thet I ourht to enter the Cabinet