This made Sir Charles exceedingly indisposed to undertake the defence of it in a House of Commons where his own questions asked in Opposition would assuredly be quoted against him by Sir John Gorst, who, when the Charter was published in December, tabled a motion against it. 'It was not so much to the thing itself I was opposed as to the manner in which it was done.' He therefore wrote to Lord Granville that he had made full search for precedents, 'the first thing which occurs to a Radical in distress,' and that finding no modern precedent, he simply could not undertake to defend the Charter, his objections being that to make such a grant without the knowledge of Parliament strained the prerogative of the Crown, and, further, that the Foreign Office was not the fit department to control a colony (as had been urged in the case of Cyprus). He notes: 'Gambetta tells me that he has at once had an application from a similar French Company—for the New Hebrides.' Lord Granville made official reply, with some asperity. But he sent a separate unofficial letter, in which, after treating of other matters, he smoothed over his more formal communication. These letters were received by Sir Charles on December 27th, 1881, on his return to Paris from Toulon.[Footnote: Later Sir Charles notes: 'My own objections (besides those to the form in which the matter had been considered) were to the absence of sufficient provisions with regard to domestic slavery and opium, but as regards these two latter points I succeeded in getting the gap filled in.'] The unofficial letter ran:
"I have sent you an answer on a separate piece of paper to your rather blowing-up letter about Borneo. You have been misled by Spencer's ignorance and Gladstone's very natural forgetfulness of the particulars. It was more inexcusable of me to have forgotten what it appears you told me about your and Rylands' previous action. When my liver does not act and official work becomes unusually irksome, I sometimes ask myself upon what question I should like to be beaten and turned out. The first would be fair trade. The second, which the St. James's and Raikes, the late Chairman of Committees, seem to anticipate, is failure to reform the procedure of the Commons owing to Tory and Home Rule obstruction. I should not think Borneo a fatal question for this purpose…. There is a great run upon us now as to Ireland, but do you remember a December when it was not generally supposed that the Government of the day was going to the dogs?"
The matter passed over, but was serious enough for Mr. Chamberlain to say in January of the following year:
"If, what I do not expect, the affair should proceed to extremities, I
shall stand or fall with you."
One other matter of this period is interesting as showing Sir Charles and his chief at work. A draft was on its way to the Colonial Office, 'laying down the law for dealing with fugitive slaves who escaped into the British sphere of influence'—a case of constant occurrence at Zanzibar. Sir Charles's views on this and kindred subjects were strong, and he worked then, as always, with the Aborigines Protection Society. He stopped it—
'and Lord Granville wrote upon my views a characteristic minute': "I think our proposed draft is right and defensible in argument. I also am of opinion that your condemnation of it is right, because the fact is that the national sentiment is so strongly opposed to what is enjoined by international law that it is better not to wake the cat as long as she is asleep!"'
At the end of July, 1881, Lord Granville's health seemed seriously affected, and Sir Charles noted that, apart from his own personal feeling, his chief's enforced retirement would be 'a great misfortune.' The choice would be between Lords Derby, Hartington, Kimberley, and Northbrook. Lord Derby seemed to him 'undecided and weak,' Lord Northbrook still weaker, while Lord Hartington 'knew no French and nothing of foreign affairs.' Of Lord Kimberley's ability he had not then formed a high estimate; but he adds that, having afterwards sat with him in the Cabinet, he changed that opinion, finding him 'a wise man,' who never did himself justice in conversation.
CHAPTER XXV
COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FRANCE
Although in the course of 1881 Sir Charles had refused to defend in the House of Commons a special grant for defraying the Prince of Wales's expenses on a Garter Mission to St. Petersburg, and Lord Frederick Cavendish, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, had to undertake this task, which more properly belonged to the Foreign Office, the Prince's relations with him were cordial. The Prince was increasingly inclined to interest himself in foreign politics, but received very little encouragement from the Court. In June, 1880 (when the rumours as to Challemel-Lacour were being set afloat [Footnote: For an account of these rumours see Chapter XXII., p. 353.]), Sir Charles noted that, as far as he could ascertain, the Prince of Wales,