John Morley

The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend upon the verdict of the country....

Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendency of England in the councils of Europe.

It is by these measures that the colonies have been bound in affection to the empire, and the authors of them can afford to smile at baseless insinuations.

To attain a moral and envied ascendency such as this, is indeed a noble object for any minister or any empire.

A clear answer from the nation, a clear answer in the right sense, and a decisive accession of the liberal party to power without me, this is what I hope and pray.

We cannot reckon on the wealth of the country, nor upon the rank of the country, nor upon the influence which rank and wealth usually bring.

Above all these, and behind all these, there is something greater than these—there is the nation itself.

The nation is a power hard to rouse, but when roused, harder still and more hopeless to resist....

I figure to myself those who have constituted the majority of the late House of Commons as the persons arraigned, and the constituencies of the country as those who are called together in the solemn order of the constitution to hear the…

There are no peers in Westminster Hall, there are no judges on the woolsack; but if we concentrate our minds upon the truth of the case as apart from its mere exterior, it is a grander and a more august spectacle than was ever exhibited…

I should feel profoundly ashamed of the burdens we brought you, had I not seen how truly they were borne in the spirit, which alone makes all burdens light.

It is a very pleasant subject of reflection to me that the riveting effect of companionship in a struggle like this, does not pass away with the struggle itself but abides.

The downfall of Beaconsfieldism is like the vanishing of some vast magnificent castle in an Italian romance.

Meantime, while I inwardly rejoice, I am against all outward signs, beyond such as are purely local, of exultation, for they are not chivalrous, and they would tend to barbarise political warfare.

I vaguely feel that this journey is a plunge out of an atmosphere of peace into an element of disturbance.

May He who has of late so wonderfully guided, guide me still in the critical days about to come.

A cabinet without him would hold its councils without the most important of the influences on which it depended.

If the majorities that carried the election could have been consulted on the choice of a minister, nobody doubted upon whom with unanimity their choice would fall.

The victory would have been shorn of half its glory if any other chief had been given to the party.

If retreat was impossible, then all the rest was inevitable.

Nothing else can possibly absolve them from their presumptive obligation as standing at the head of the party which for the time represents the country.

Promises of this kind, I said, stood on slippery ground, and must always be understood with the limits which might be prescribed by conviction.

But since they had given this advice, it was not consistent with my duty to shrink from any responsibility which I had incurred, and I was aware that I had incurred a very great responsibility.

I said I had obtained the co-operation of Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, and that my knowledge and belief as to prevailing dispositions would, I think, warrant me in undertaking to form a government, it being her Majesty’s pleasure.

The report of the Commission would show that Lord Cardwell’s system of short service had entirely broken down, and that a change must be made at any rate as regarded the non-commissioned officers.