Never was there a great catastrophe so totally unexpected. Within an hour of the beginning of the debate no one doubted that the Government would have a majority, but Milner Gibson's speech was not concluded before it was evident that his amendment would be carried, and Palmerston's conduct was very unaccountable. It was clear from the tone of his speech, which was as bad as possible, feeble and intemperate, that he was aware of what was going to happen, and yet when the true state of the case was urged upon him, and he was pressed to adjourn the debate till Monday, which could easily have been done, he obstinately refused. If he had done this, there is little doubt that he would have whipped up a majority by Monday. Certainly no people ever so mismanaged their affairs. There is no excuse for their having put on the table of the House of Commons such a despatch as Walewski's, without any reply being made to it. It required no great sagacity to anticipate that such a course of proceeding could not fail to throw the House of Commons into a flame, and exasperate the country, already much excited, and all the excuses they made only made their case worse, and were generally inconsistent with each other. George Grey's was the most pitiful, when he said that after the second reading an answer should be sent. Then they made shuffling statements: at one time that they had sent no answer, and that to have answered it as alone it could be answered must have increased the irritation. Then, that they had given a verbal answer, and at last it transpired that an answer had been sent in the shape of a private letter from Clarendon to Cowley.

MISMANAGEMENT.

There were two courses open to the Government, either of which might have been very naturally and not improperly taken. Palmerston might have announced that it was not his intention to produce any of the correspondence between the two Governments, and asked the House of Commons to place confidence in him, and allow him to take the steps he deemed best to satisfy the French Government, and at the same time vindicate the honour and dignity of this country, and if he had stated that he thought it would be injurious to the interests of peace and amity to produce any papers, it is perfectly certain he would have met with unanimous acquiescence. The only objection I have heard to this is that the French Government published the despatch in the 'Moniteur;' but if Palmerston had resolved upon silence here, he could have informed Cowley of his resolution, and instructed him to come to a common agreement with Walewski that they should publish nothing in the 'Moniteur,' and we should keep the correspondence from Parliament here. Not acting in this way, he ought to have sent an answer, and who can suppose that such men as Palmerston and Clarendon, whose lives have been passed in writing despatches, and who are both so remarkably expert at that work, should be unable to concoct a reply to Walewski which should be conciliatory in tone and matter, and at once suffice for the fears and exigencies of France and for the national pride and honour of England? Clarendon's private letter is said to have been excellent, and of course it must have been well adapted for its purposes. What difficulty could there have been, therefore, in converting the private into a public letter, which if it had accompanied the French letter would have pacified both the House of Commons and the country, for the Government ought not to have forgotten, as it seems they did, that the English and French Governments were not the only parties in this transaction, but there were the English Government and the House of Commons and the country, between whom accounts had to be settled. There are people who fancy that Palmerston was not sorry to be beaten on Milner Gibson's motion, thinking it better to go out upon that than upon the motion against Clanricarde on March 4 (the abolition of the Privy Seal), on which they think they certainly would have been defeated, and on which they must have resigned; but I don't think their defeat on the latter was so certain, and they might have been saved by Clanricarde's resignation before the debate came on. The conduct of those who brought forward and those who supported the vote of censure, and that of the Government in going out upon it, admits of much diversity of opinion. The friends of the Government, and those who were averse to a change, maintain that the amendment was inexcusable, and that the House of Commons had no business to meddle with the functions of the Executive, or to express any opinion as to the propriety of answering or not a despatch which ought to have been left to the discretion of the Minister, and the ex-Ministers say that the vote made it impossible for them to do anything but resign, and that their opponents must have been fully aware that this would be the consequence of their victory.

DETERMINATION TO RESIGN.

Their conduct is inexplicable to me, for I believe they were very sorry to go out, and yet if they had wished it they might have very well stayed in. According to ancient practice any vote of censure produced resignation as a matter of course, no matter what the subject of it, but it did so because a vote of censure, and indeed any adverse vote on any important measure, implied that the House of Commons had withdrawn its confidence from the Government, the fact of which rendered it impossible for them to carry on the affairs of the country, and obliged them to resign. But it is impossible to pretend that the late vote indicated the withdrawal of the confidence of the House of Commons generally. They had had two immense majorities a few days before, and they would have had another as large a few days after if they had gone on with the bill. If I had been able to advise the Queen, I would have recommended her to refuse Lord Palmerston's resignation, and have insisted on his testing the question of confidence on the Conspiracy Bill, or on some question in which the national passions were not concerned, and he could not have refused to take this course. Even after she had sent for Derby he gave her the opportunity (though not I suppose the advice to do so), for he said she had better take another day for consideration, and then if she decided on wishing him to form a Government, he would undertake it.

February 26th.—I met George Lewis yesterday, and talked over with him the whole affair. He thinks that it has all been fearfully mismanaged, and that the catastrophe might have been avoided in many different ways: first, by answering the despatch; secondly, by doing what I have suggested, producing no papers and asking for confidence; then by the Speaker's declining to allow the amendment to be put, as he well might have done, and as a strong Speaker would have done. Lord Eversley advised him to do this, and gave his strong opinion that the amendment was inadmissible. It is curious that Palmerston's overthrow should be the work of a Parliament elected expressly to support him, and immediately caused by the act of a Speaker whom he insisted upon putting in the chair, contrary to the advice of many others who thought he would prove inefficient.

I told Lewis I thought their resignation was not called for, and what I would have advised the Queen. He said the whole question was well and most calmly and dispassionately considered, and they were unanimous as to the necessity of resignation, with the sole exception of Vernon Smith, and that was without any arri�re pens�e of returning on an anticipated failure of Derby; that the Queen had begged Palmerston not to resign upon this vote, and he had returned to the Cabinet, and reported what she said, but they were all without exception for adhering to their resignation. Derby, too, had evidently wished to afford Palmerston an opportunity of recalling it, for he had begged the Queen to take twenty-four hours to consider of it; but it is probable that Her Majesty, having failed to persuade Palmerston in the first instance, had thought it useless to make any further attempts.

Lewis gave me such strong reasons for their determination, that I confess they materially shook my opinion. He said there was no possibility of mistaking the feeling there was against Palmerston, which if I had been present and seen what passed in the House that night, I could not have doubted; that the only way in which they could have stayed in was by getting somebody to move a vote of confidence, which was too dangerous an experiment, as in the present state of the House of Commons it was at least an even chance that such a vote would not have been carried, and certain that they would have had all the great guns of all sides thundering against them. He thought Palmerston's speech had been very ill advised, and had done much harm, and that it was a mistake not to have adjourned the debate, when it was very probable that they might have had an opportunity of changing the fortune of it.