466
GLADSTONE.
both these points the exigencies of the times required that some con- cessions should be made. He con- sequently found himself frequently opposed to his former friends, and eventually separated himself from the great body of the Conservative party, in Feb., 1861. At the general election in July following, Mr. Gladstone was re-elected for the University of Oxford, but not with- out a severe contest. On the forma- tion of what is generally known as the "Coalition" ministry, under the Earl of Aberdeen, in Bee, 1852, Mr. Gladstone was appointed to the Chancellorship of tiie Exchequer, in which office the thorough know- ledge of finance which he had ac- quired in former life, and had tested by practical experience at the Board of Trade, proved of the greatest assistance to the ministry. After the breaking up of the Aberdeen administration, or rather, on its reconstruction under Lord Palmer- ston at the commencement of 1B55, Mr. Gladstone at first continued to occupy the same post, which he re- signed in the course of a few weeks, on finding that it was not the in- tention of the ministry collectively to oppose the vote of censure im- plied in the resolution of Mr. £oe- buck, in favour of the appointment of a committee of inquiry into the state of the British army before Sebastopol, and the causes of its sufferings. For some time Mr. Gladstone, who held no public office, gave Lord Palmerston's ministry an independent support. Li the winter of 1858-9 he accepted, under Lord Derby's second cabinet, a special mission to the Ionian Islands, to arrange certain difficulties which had arisen in the administration of that dependency ; and in June, 1859, resumed office under Lord Palmer- ston as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this capacity he was mainly in- strumental in repealing the paper duty, and in promoting the nego- tiations conducted by Mr. Cobden, which resulted in the commercial
treaty between this country France. Mr. Gladstone, t] originally very jealous of an vention on the part of the St the matter of University K< lent the Government from ti time very valuable assistant supporting the suggestions < Oxford University Commissi* tiirough his extensive persom official influence with the au ties of Oxford as one of the i sentatives of that university i liament. Besides being emin a statesman, Mr. Gladstone h quired celebrity as an author, first work, a treatise entitled State in its Relations wit! Church," published in 1838 edition enlarged, 2 vols., 1841 followed, in 1841, by his "C Principles considered in the: suits," stamped him, while i young man, as a deep and or thinker. His views on the8< jects, as they are unfolded in treatises, had, we need scarce! been formed and moulded l education and associations o ford, to which university th( dedicated as the first-fruits < teaching and training. Soon their appearance, they were th worthy of a long and ela1 criticism by the late Lord Ma< in the pages of the Edinhur, view. Mr. Gladstone's "Be; on Becent Commercial Legisla published in 1845, while the cc was on the eve of an imp change in her commercial s^ were intended to pave the w the extensive modification i restrictions on commerce in by the com laws, and conta able and comprehensive sun of the beneficial results of the of 1842. In 1851 he pubUs work of a different kind, created considerable interest at home and abroad. During to Naples in the previous ye learned that a large numl citizens of that place, wh formed the "Opposition" i
