It would not be easy to find such a candidate, or perhaps possible to bring him in when found. The Fletchers had always been good Conservatives, and were proper people to be in Parliament. A Conservative in Parliament is, of course, obliged to promote a great many things which he does not really approve. Mr. Gresham quite understood that. You can't have tests and qualifications, rotten boroughs and the divine right of kings, back again. But as the glorious institutions of the country are made to perish, one after the other, it is better that they should receive the coup de grace tenderly from loving hands than be roughly throttled by Radicals. Mr. Gresham would thank his stars that he could still preserve foxes down in his own country, instead of doing any of this dirty work, — for let the best be made of such work, still it was dirty, — and was willing, now as always, to give his assistance, and if necessary to spend a little money, to put a Fletcher into Parliament. [I, 378-379]

References

Trollope, Anthony. The Prime Minister. [1875-76] "Oxford World Classics." Oxford: Oxford UP, 1951.


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