And again on Christmas-day, to the same gentleman, in reply to an acknowledgment of the preceding, he says, while thanking Mr. Bankes 'for his warm-hearted letter as very grateful to his feelings,'--' Confidentially I tell you, that far from feeling in the least annoyed, I shall feel greatly relieved by a restoration to privacy and freedom. I worked upon my spirit in '46 and '47; but I have learnt now that I have shaken my constitution to the foundation, and I seriously doubt my being able to work on much longer.'
He wrote on the 24th of December to one of his most intimate friends and warmest supporters, Mr. Christopher, the member for Lincolnshire, who had remonstrated with him as to his decision: 'It is not in my nature to retain a station one moment after I get a hint even that any portion of those who raised me to it are wearied of seeing me there. The old members of the party will all recollect how clearly I foresaw and foretold that I should be found a very inconvenient as well as a very inefficient leader, so soon as the great Protection battle was brought to a close. I predicted all that has since occurred; and no one more cordially agrees than I do in the wisdom of the present decision, the spirit I presume of which is that no great party or large body of men can be successfully, or to any good purpose, led except by a man who heart and soul sympathizes with them in all their feelings, partialities, and prejudices. Cold reason has a poor chance against such influences. There can be no _esprit de corps_ and no zeal where there is not a union of prejudices as well as of commercial opinions. The election of a leader united with the great body of the party in these respects, will tend greatly to reunite its scattered particles, even on those questions where I shall be able to give my aid with all my wonted zeal, which will not be the less spirited because it will be free and independent.'
At a later period, acknowledging an address signed by the great body of the Protectionist party, and presented to him by the present Earl Talbot, then a member of the House of Commons, Lord George wrote, 'The considerations which obliged me to surrender a post of honour which every independent and high-minded English gentleman has at all times prized above the highest rewards in the gift of the crown, "the leadership of the country gentlemen of England," will never influence me to swerve from any endeavours of which my poor abilities and bodily energies are capable in the promotion of the prosperity of all classes in the British empire at home and in the colonies, any more than they can ever make me forget the attachment, the friendship, and the enthusiastic support of those who stood by me to the end of the death struggle for British interests and for English good faith and political honour, and to whose continued friendship and constancy I know I am indebted for this graceful and grateful compliment.'