We are getting on here pretty well. If the Whigs had joined the Government, there might have been a scramble for office, as there was in 1853; for the Whigs are now in the same position as the Peelites were at that time--officers without an army. It is much more to the credit of my friends to give a disinterested support to Lord Salisbury; and this alliance gives a sufficiently Liberal colour to the measures of the administration. There is every appearance that the Unionists will hold together. Mr. Gladstone continues to be in a state of hallucination and excitement which exceeds belief. It is a case of moral and political suicide. The crisis will probably end by the death of Mr. Parnell, the falling [off] of the American subscriptions, and the extinction of Mr. Gladstone; but in the meantime they have totally ruined Ireland. _From Sir Arthur Gordon_ _August 30th_.--Your letter of June 13th must have crossed one from me, in which I explained to you why I had written to the 'Times' about the formation of the Government of 1853 instead of merely sending my observations to you as a note for future use. I need not say that I am much flattered by your proposal to insert the letter--or part of it--in a note to a future edition of Mr. Greville's Memoirs... I am struck very much by what I think I mentioned once before--the frequency with which Mr. Greville's friends gave him what may be called 'a three-quarters knowledge' of pending affairs. They told him a great deal, but frequently not _all_. In the affairs with which I am really acquainted, there is almost always something--and that an important something--which does not appear in his notes... I have specially noticed this with regard to Lord Palmerston's 'resignation' in 1853, It is the more remarkable, because it is apparent from various passages that he 'burnt'--as they say in a game of hide and seek--but never actually quite caught the true facts. I have never known a secret better guarded than the fact--which, after a lapse of four and thirty years, one may, I think, mention--that Lord P.'s resignation on that occasion was _not_ voluntary, and that he was, in fact, extruded. [Footnote: In a later letter, June 5th, 1888, Sir Arthur Gordon wrote:--'He had given great offence to the Queen; and his colleagues--at least, his most important colleagues--distrusted his action in reference to pending negotiations, Lord Clarendon especially resenting the intrigues he believed he was carrying on. Things being in this state, he announced his hostility to Reform, and it was determined to take advantage of this announcement to remove him; and removed he would have been, but for the two causes I have noted.'] But, to be sure, half the Cabinet did not know this; and it was their ignorance, coupled with Newcastle's and Gladstone's dislike of Lord John, that brought him back again.