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 the last eight months. Confiding in thepeaceful chap. tendency of a Government headed by Lord Aberdeen, and having Mr Gladstone for one of its foremost members, Mr Bright, in the summer of 1853, had deprecated all discussion;

and, under his encouragement, the Government, after some hesitation, determined to withhold the production of the papers. With the lights which he then had, Mr Bright was perhaps entitled to believe that the course he took was the right one, and the intention of the Government was not only honest, but in some degree self-sacrificing; for it cannot be doubted that the disclosure of the able and high-spirited despatches of Lord Clarendon would have raised the Government in public esteem. It is now certain, however, that the disclosure of the papers in the August of 1853 would have enabled the friends of peace to take up a strong ground, to give a new turn to opinion whilst yet there was time, and to save themselves from the utter discomfiture which they underwent in the interval between the prorogation and the meeting of Parliament.

The Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen was not famous for its power of preventing the leakage of State matters; but the common indiscretion by which simple facts are noised abroad does not suffice to disclose the general tenor and bearing of a long and intricate negotiation. Besides, in the absence of means of authentic knowledge, there were circumstances which raised presumptions opposite to the truth. Of course the chief of these was