issued an address to the electors of Newark, dated January 5, 1846, of
which the following is an extract: "By accepting the office of Secretary
of State for the Colonies, I have ceased to be your representative in
Parliament. On several accounts I should have been peculiarly desirous
at the present time of giving you an opportunity to pronounce your
constitutional judgment on my public conduct, by soliciting at your
hands a renewal of the trust which I have already received from you on
five successive occasions, and held during a period of thirteen years.
But as I have good reason to believe that a candidate recommended to
your favor through local connections may ask your suffrages, it becomes
my very painful duty to announce to you on that ground alone my
retirement from a position which has afforded me so much of honor and of
satisfaction." Mr. Gladstone further goes on to explain that he accepted
office because he held that "it was for those who believed the
Government was acting according to the demands of public duty to testify
that belief, however limited their sphere might be, by their
co-operation." He had acted "in obedience to the clear and imperious
call of public obligation."

It was in this way that Mr. Gladstone became a voluntary exile from the
House of Commons during this important season, and took no part in the
debates, his personal powerful advocacy being lost in the consideration
of the great measure before the House. He was a member of the Cabinet,
but not of the House of Commons. It was no secret, however, that he was
the most advanced Free Trader in the Peel Cabinet, and that the policy
of the government in regard to this great measure of 1846 was to a large
extent moulded by him.

It is also known that his representations of the effects of Free Trade
on the industry of the country and the general well-being of the people