course most painful to myself in respect to personal feelings, and have
separated myself from men with whom and under whom I have long acted in
public life, and of whom I am bound to say, although I have now no
longer the honor of serving my most gracious Sovereign, that I continue
to regard them with unaltered sentiments both of public regard and
private attachment."

Then again he said: "My whole purpose was to place myself in a position
in which I should be free to consider any course without being liable
to any just suspicion on the ground of personal interest. It is not
profane if I now 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; for it was in progress from year to year, with continually
waxing courage, towards the emancipation of industry, and therein
towards the accomplishment of another great and blessed work of public
justice. Giving up what I highly prized, aware that

male sarta
Gratia nequicquam coit, et rescinditur.

I felt myself open to the charge of being opinionated and wanting in
deference to really great authorities, and I could not but know that I
should inevitably be 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."

There were some of his party angry and others who thought that there was