When one day in late February 1826 young Benjamin Disraeli closed the door of 50 Albemarle Street behind him for the last time, he was despondent and frustrated. For the past three weeks he had been acting editor of the Representative, and during the last few months he had been the moving force behind it. Yet lately he had seen that the publication, instead of rising to the expectations he himself had helped create, was being rejected by the public and derided by the journalistic world. Worse still, the failure was being blamed on him for his insistence on launching the paper too soon, for the lack of journalistic quality of the first two leading articles that he had written so sedulously, and certainly for his reckless spending during the previous months. Neither did the other notes he inserted in the paper, most of them dealing on the richness of South American mines (although a few centred on the evils of the Catholic Church) help the Representative become the number one publication in the country.

The young man felt betrayed by John Gibson Lockhart and treated unfairly by John Murray. After he had defended Lockhart from his enemies in London and practically, in his view, saved his nomination as editor of the Quarterly Review, he had expected a friend and an ally against John Murray and the publisher's timorous personality. But instead of supporting him, Lockhart had maintained a cool detachment and even found fault with Disraeli's management of the newspaper, although earlier he had listened carefully to his gossip about John Murray's drinking habits and even appeared to believe him, at first. Benjamin's disappointment resulted from the unfair treatment he felt had been meted out on him. He had worked frantically day and night to bring the newspaper to light and now his efforts went unrecognised and the little authority he had deservedly, he believed, gained with regards to the running of the paper was being undermined by the two people less likely to do so: his former friend and ally, John Gibson Lockhart, and his mentor, John Murray.