certain degree careless and insolent in the confidence of their strength, but their weakness renders them circumspect and conscientious. Governments with great majorities at their back can afford to do gross jobs, or take strong party measures; but when their opponents are as strong as themselves, and their majorities are never secure, they can venture upon nothing of the kind. All oppositions must affect a prodigious show of political virtue, and must be vigilant and economical, no matter how lax may have been their political morality when in power. But no politician, or party man, has any tenderness for an abuse the profit of which is to accrue to his adversary, and in this way good government may happen to be the result of a weak Ministry and a strong Opposition. August 24th, 1840 {p.297} [Page Head: THE TREATY OF JULY.] Passed the greatest part of last week at the Grove, where Clarendon talked to me a great deal about the Eastern Question, and Palmerston's policy in that quarter. Palmerston, it seems, has had for many years as his fixed idea the project of humbling the Pasha of Egypt.[11] In the Cabinet he has carried everything his own way; all his colleagues either really concurring with him, or being too ignorant and too indifferent to fight the battle against his strong determination, except Lord Holland and Clarendon, who did oppose with all their strength Palmerston's recent treaty; but quite ineffectually. They had for their only ally, Lord Granville at Paris, and nothing can exceed the contempt with which the Palmerstonians treat this little knot of dissentients, at least the two elder ones, who (they say) are become quite imbecile, and they wonder Lord Granville does not resign. Palmerston, in fact, appears to exercise an absolute despotism at the Foreign Office, and deals with all our vast and complicated questions of diplomacy according to his own views and opinions, without the slightest control, and scarcely any interference on the part of his colleagues. This apathy is mainly attributable to that which appears in Parliament and in the country upon all foreign questions. Nobody understands and nobody cares for them, and when any rare and occasional notice is taken of a particular point, or of some question on which a slight and evanescent interest is manifested, Palmerston has little difficulty in dealing with the matter, which he always meets with a consummate impudence and, it must be allowed, a skill and resolution, which invariably carry him through. Whether the policy which he has adopted upon the Eastern Question be the soundest and most judicious, events must determine; but I never was more amazed than at reading his letters, so dashing, bold, and confident in their tone. Considering the immensity of the stake for which he is playing, that he _may_ be about to plunge all Europe into a war, and that if war does ensue it will be entirely his doing, it is utterly astonishing he should not be