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Grey, who could not have remained in office without the support of Althorp's great popularity in the commons, at once resolved to follow his example, and on July 9 took leave of political life in a dignified and pathetic speech.
Such a prospect was equally alarming to the landed interest and the householders, whose rival demands were mutually destructive, the result being that Althorp's amendment was carried by a large majority, and the government escaped humiliation, though not without some loss of prestige.
An old banker once told me: 'Sir, I was on Lord Althorp's committee which decided on the publication of the Bank account, and I voted against it. I thought it would frighten people.
Still, the leaders of the Tory Opposition were not deterred by Lord Althorp's proclamation from maintaining their work of obstruction for some time yet. The impatience and anger of the country rose higher and higher.
As for Ward's motion, the original cause of Grey's desertion by Stanley and his subsequent fall, it had been rejected by an enormous majority in favour of "the previous question" before Althorp's disappearance from his old position.
Stanley laughed at Lord Althorp's arrow-root, and recommended his own supper, cold meat and warm negus; a supper which I will certainly begin to take when I feel a desire to pass the night with a sensation as if I was swallowing a nutmeg-grater every third minute. We talked about timidity in speaking. Lord Althorp said that he had only just got over his apprehensions.
Efforts were made to delay its introduction, and full advantage was taken of Althorp's statement that one special commission had been completely successful. His opening speech, tame and inconclusive, discouraged his own followers.
And on that occasion it is worth remarking that, though Lord Althorp's demand was resisted in one or two quarters, he was vigorously supported by Sir Robert Peel, on the ground that, though to rescind one night a vote passed on a former one might be not altogether free from objection, it would be a far greater evil that questions of importance should be held to be in all cases finally decided by a single vote, passed, it might be, in a thin House, or in obedience to some sudden impulse.
I left the House at about three, in consequence of some expressions of Lord Althorp's which indicated that the Ministry was inclined to yield on the question of going into Committee on the Bill. I afterwards much regretted that I had gone away; not that my presence was necessary; but because I should have liked to have sate through so tremendous a storm.
The tradition of Lord Althorp's confidence in him, and of how he requited it by securing Caxton's "Golden Legend" for the library of that distinguished collector, under the very nose of his hot rival, the Duke of Marlborough, was tenderly cherished as an heirloom in the old shop.
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