Neither the weather, which was very hot, nor the tedium of the session, which had been very great, nor the anxiety of Ministers, which was very pressing, had any effect in impairing the energy of Mr. Turnbull.  He was as instant, as oratorical, as hostile, as indignant about redistribution as he had been about the franchise.  He had been sure then, and he was sure now, that Ministers desired to burke the question, to deceive the people, to produce a bill that should be no bill.  He brought out his clause,—­and made Loughton his instance.  “Would the honourable gentleman who sat lowest on the Treasury bench,—­who at this moment was in sweet confidential intercourse with the right honourable gentleman now President of the Board of Trade, who had once been a friend of the people,—­would the young Lord of the Treasury get up in his place and tell them that no peer of Parliament had at present a voice in sending a member to their House of Commons,—­that no peer would have a voice if this bill, as proposed by the Government, were passed in its present useless, ineffectual, conservative, and most dishonest form?”

Phineas, who replied to this, and who told Mr. Turnbull that he himself could not answer for any peers,—­but that he thought it probable that most peers would, by their opinions, somewhat influence the opinions of some electors,—­was thought to have got out of his difficulty very well.  But there was the clause of Mr. Turnbull to be dealt with,—­a clause directly disfranchising seven single-winged boroughs, of which Loughton was of course one,—­a clause to which the Government must either submit or object.  Submission would be certain defeat in one way, and objection would be as certain defeat in another,—­if the gentlemen on the other side were not disposed to assist the ministers.  It was said that the Cabinet was divided.  Mr. Gresham and Mr. Monk were for letting the seven boroughs go.  Mr. Mildmay could not bring himself to obey Mr. Turnbull, and Mr. Palliser supported him.  When Mr. Mildmay was told that Mr. Daubeny would certainly go into the same lobby with Mr. Turnbull respecting the seven boroughs, he was reported to have said that in that case Mr. Daubeny must be prepared with a Government.  Mr. Daubeny made a beautiful speech about the seven boroughs;—­the seven sins, and seven stars, and seven churches, and seven lamps.  He would make no party question of this.  Gentlemen who usually acted with him would vote as their own sense of right or wrong directed them;—­from which expression of a special sanction it was considered that these gentlemen were not accustomed to exercise the privilege now accorded to them.  But in regarding the question as one of right and wrong, and in looking at what he believed to be both the wish of the country and its interests, he, Mr. Daubeny,—­he, himself, being simply a humble member of that House,—­must support the clause of the honourable gentleman.  Almost all those to whom had been surrendered the