We have had a week of Parliament, and though nothing important has occurred, the discussions do not seem to have raised the reputation of the Government or to promise them an easy session, though nobody seems to expect that their stability is likely to be shaken. Disraeli and Gladstone seem verging towards each other in opposition, but there is no appearance of a coalition between them; the only striking fact is that the Opposition, of whose disunion we have heard so much, and of the internal repulsion supposed to prevail among them, seems to be as united as ever it has been, and the usual people appeared at Derby's and Disraeli's gatherings. I take it that any appearance of vulnerability of the Government silences all manifestations of their mutual antipathies, and puts them on the qui vive to turn out their opponents.
Gladstone seems bent on leading Sir George Lewis a weary life, but Lewis is just the man to encounter and baffle such an opponent, for he is cold-blooded as a fish, totally devoid of sensibility or nervousness, of an imperturbable temper, calm and resolute, laborious and indefatigable, and exceedingly popular in the House of Commons from his general good humour and civility, and the credit given him for honour, sincerity, plain dealing, and good intentions.
February 11th.—The Duke of Bedford told me yesterday that Clarendon had complained to him bitterly of John Russell's speech the first night of the session, of the hostility it manifested, and particularly of what he said about Naples. On looking at the report of the speech, the Neapolitan part was certainly strong, but it was not stronger than was warranted by the circumstances of the case, and there seems no reason why Lord John should abstain from speaking out his opinions fairly on any important point of foreign policy. His speech, on the whole, was not regarded as hostile or acrimonious. Disraeli has got into a scrape by blurting out an accusation which he has entirely failed in making good, and he has afforded Palmerston an occasion for a triumph over him not a little damaging. I am told the effect in the House was very bad for Disraeli. Palmerston is said to be beginning to show some symptoms of physical weakness, which if it be so, is very serious at the beginning of a long and arduous session. He is rising seventy-three, and at that age, and loaded with the weight of public affairs, it is not wonderful if the beginning of the end should be discernible.
TREATY BETWEEN FRANCE AND AUSTRIA.
February 14th.—The defeat which Disraeli sustained the other night was turned the night before last into something like a triumph, and Palmerston found himself in a disagreeable position. Disraeli had asserted that a Treaty had been concluded between France and Austria for certain ends and at a certain time. Palmerston flatly contradicted him, and with great insolence of manner, especially insisting that it was nothing but a Convention, and that conditional, which never had been signed. Two nights after Palmerston came down to the House, and in a very jaunty way said he must correct his former statement, and inform the House he had just discovered that the Convention had been signed. Great triumph naturally on the part of Disraeli, who poured forth a rather violent invective. Then Palmerston lost his temper and retorted that Disraeli was trying to cover an ignominious retreat by vapouring. This language, under the circumstances of the case, was very imprudent and very improper, and (unlike what he had ever experienced before) he sat down without a single cheer, his own people even not venturing to challenge the approbation of the House in a matter in which, though Disraeli was not right, Palmerston was so clearly wrong. What business had he to make such a mistake? for he ought to have been perfectly and accurately informed of every detail connected with foreign affairs. He certainly is not qualis erat, and I am disposed to believe that he is about to begin breaking, and that he will not be able to go through a long and arduous session with the same vigour and success which he has hitherto manifested. Every sign and symptom of weakness and failing strength which he may show will raise the hopes and stimulate the exertions of the Opposition, and we may expect to see not a coalition, but such a concurrence between Gladstone, Disraeli, and Lord Stanley as will prevent the possibility of an alternative Government. Gladstone and Disraeli are already on friendly terms, and Gladstone and Stanley seem to be still more intimate. The present Government only exists by Palmerston's personal popularity, and it would not require much to pull that down.
February 17th.—I called on Lyndhurst on Sunday. He was in high force, with the Blue Book before him, getting up the China case, on which he means to have a day in the House of Lords. He told me that Gladstone says the Budget is the worst that was ever produced, and he stakes his credit on proving that it is full of errors from beginning to end, that, instead of a present surplus of nearly a million, there is a present deficit of four millions, and that there will be one of nine millions in 1860. I don't believe he will make his words good.
DIFFICULT RELATIONS WITH FRANCE.
I saw Clarendon yesterday morning, and found him low, worn, and out of sorts; said he wished to Heaven he could be delivered from office; everything went wrong, the labour, anxiety, and responsibility were overwhelming, and the difficult state of our relations with France more than could be endured. He could not depend on the French Government, and never knew from one day to another what the consequences of their conduct might be. He believed the Emperor sincerely desired to keep well with us, but his Government were constantly doing things which rendered our acting together and cordially almost impossible; that his excessive levity and carelessness perpetually made him the dupe of other people, and led him into saying things and committing himself, and then he did not know how to get out of the engagements to which he stood committed. Clarendon added that it was impossible such a state of things should not produce first coolness and then quarrels, and then God knows what consequences, and he was obliged to pick his way through the embarrassments that spring up around him with the utmost care and circumspection. Palmerston, who never saw difficulties, took it with his usual easy way, and said we were not tied to France like Siamese Twins, and why should we care so much what she did, and why might she not take her way, and we ours; but Clarendon feels that it is impossible for him, on whom the responsibility is more immediately thrown, to take a matter fraught with such consequences in so easy a style; that if any serious dispute arose, France and Russia would probably become allied against us, and that America would join them. Russia pays the most unceasing and the most abject court to Louis Napoleon, and not without success. He (Clarendon) said nothing could be worse than the conduct of the French Government about the affair of the Principalities, which was of vital importance to Austria, who threatened (though she would not keep her resolution) to make it a casus belli if it is insisted on. He said Austria had behaved very well about the amnesty in Italy, and was going to do the same thing in Hungary. We were interrupted as usual in our conversation, and I had not time to ask him about many things I wanted to hear of. I told him I thought the China case was a very bad one.
John Russell seems to me to be drifting into hostility to the Government more and more. He made a strong, but very just, speech on Naples the first night, which irritated Clarendon very much. A few nights ago he said something in the House about China, and backed up the Government against Roebuck, at which Clarendon expressed great satisfaction, and evinced a disposition to seize that pretext to put himself on good terms with Lord John, but Lord John showed no readiness to meet the overture, and when the Duke of Bedford wrote to him what Clarendon had said, he replied that Clarendon owed him nothing, for he had said what he thought right and not what he thought would be agreeable to him, and that it was very probable he should say something he would not at all like before long.