He was called at length from this retirement by the return of his own party to power. In March of 1851 Lord John Russell had announced the resignation of the Government owing to their defeat on the franchise question; Lord Stanley was sent for by Queen Victoria, but found himself unable to form a ministry, and upon the advice of the Duke of Wellington the Queen had requested her ministers to resume office. But this arrangement lasted less than a year. On the 27th of February following Lord Stanley, by that time Earl of Derby, became prime minister in the new Government with Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Spencer Walpole, Lord Malmesbury and Sir John Packington, among his colleagues, and in this cabinet Lord Hardwicke sat as Postmaster-General. It was a short term of office, which lasted less than a year, during which time, however, Lord Hardwicke's energy and powers of organisation were much appreciated in his department, where he came to be known as 'Lord Hardwork'; but his official life came to an end with that of the Government upon the return to power, in December 1852, of the Aberdeen administration, which included Lord John Russell as Foreign Secretary and Sir James Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty.
A characteristic souvenir of the immortal Duke of Wellington occurs to me in connection with this first administration of Lord Derby, well known as the 'Derby D'Israeli Ministry,' which may find a place here. A great many new men necessarily composed it, and when they were all mustered before being 'sworn in' the Duke began chaffing them 'as somewhat raw recruits,' and then taking his stick he put them into line and said, 'You will require a little drilling' and he flourished his stick about, imitating a sergeant, and amused them all very much. Such was the great man's way of putting a home truth.
The fall of Lord Derby's government was the occasion for a letter to my father from Mr. Croker, in which that gentleman appears to admiration in the characteristic role of candid friend. I print this, not only as a typical effort of that critical spirit, but because it contains a very just appreciation of my mother's great qualities, to which her husband and her children owe so much.
* * * * *
Dec. 31, 1852.
'… As for the party, I cannot but feel with you, that a party without a spokesman in the House of Commons is as nothing, but with such a spokesman as Disraeli, it is worse than nothing. In Opposition, his talents of debate would be most valuable, if there was any security for his principles or his judgment. I have no faith in either.
'But after all, nobody is so much to blame as Derby; why did he not take higher and surer ground. Why are you all turned out on—neither you nor anyone else can say what? You had not even hoisted a flag to rally round. You have been like some poor people I have read of in the late storm, buried under the ruins of your own edifice, but whether you were stifled or crushed, killed by a rafter or a brick, nobody can tell. You have died a death so ignoble that it has no name, and the Coroner's verdict is "Found Dead."
'Why did you not die in the Protestant cause; on something that some party could take an interest in? Why did you spare Cardinal Wiseman? Why butter Louis Buonaparte thicker than his own French cooks? Why did you lay the ground of the confiscation of landed property by a differential income tax and by hinting at taxing property by inheritance? "You have left undone the things you ought to have done, and you have done those things which you ought not to have done, and there is no help for you."
'My own grief is this, that Disraeli's vanity, or as he would say, his character, was committed by his electioneering speeches and addresses, and that you all, half generosity and half prudence, resolved to stand by him rather than break up the Government, which his resignation would have done. That's my solution of the greatest political riddle I ever encountered.
'I know not what to say about your going to sea, I fear observations on your resigning the ship abroad and taking one at home for the mere purpose of making up a little time. Pray think well of it. I daresay you would receive a civil answer, perhaps get a ship, but cui bono. What is your flag to you? [Footnote: He was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral in November 1858.] I wish you were on the Admiral's list for the sake of the country if we are to have a war, but I see no advantage in it if there is no prospect of distinguished service.