XXVII Ireland and Party Politics, 1885–7 : an unpublished Conservative Memoir (II)

Thus ended Lord Salisbury’s first administration. The division was followed by an impromptu supper of about a hundred M.P.s at the Carlton Club. I sat beside Lord Randolph who was in high spirits. He told me that there had been a similar gathering on the night Gladstone was defeated in the previous June and he hoped we should soon have another. The house adjourned to enable the new ministers to be re-elected; and I spent the interval in Ireland. As I did not share Lord Randolph’s sanguine view of the situation, I thought it prudent to be prepared for years spent in the cool shade of opposition. & We gave up our horses and coachman, and put an end to all unnecessary personal expenditure.