Note 292 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Mr. Gladstone received valuable aid from Bethell, the solicitor-general. On leaving, office in 1855 he wrote to Bethell: 'After having had to try your patience more than once in circumstances of real difficulty, I have found your kindness inexhaustible, and your aid invaluable, so that I really can ill tell on which of the two I look back with the greater pleasure. The memory of the Succession Duty bill is to me something like what Inkermann may be to a private of the Guards: you were the sergeant from whom I got my drill and whose hand and voice carried me through.'