Lord John has disappointed me; and when I contrast the vigour of his original resolutions with the feebleness of his subsequent efforts, the tameness with which he has submitted to be overruled and thwarted, and to endure the treachery, and almost the insult of Palmerston's newspaper tricks, I am bound to acknowledge that he is not the man I took him for. The fact is, that his position has been one of the greatest embarrassment--but of embarrassment of his own making. He consented to the Treaty of July, without due consideration of the consequences it was almost sure to entail. When those consequences burst upon him in a very dangerous and alarming shape, he seems suddenly to have awakened from his dream of security, and to have bestirred himself to avert the impending evils; but while the magnitude of the peril pressed him on one side, on the other he was hampered by the consciousness of his own inconsistency, and that he could not do anything without giving Palmerston a good case against him. And when at last he did resolve to take a decisive step, he never calculated upon the means at his disposal to bring about the change of policy which he advocated. He moved, accordingly, like a man in chains. He distrusted Palmerston, and did not dare tell him so; Melbourne would not help him; he dreaded a breach partly official, partly domestic, with Palmerston, and only thought of keeping the rickety machine of Government together as long as possible, by any means he could, and was content to leave the issues of peace or war to the chapter of accidents. The rest of the Cabinet seem to have been pretty evenly balanced, feeling (as was very natural) that they had no good case for opposing Palmerston, conscious that Lord John's alarms were not without foundation, and that his position gave him a right to take a decisive lead in the Cabinet; still they were not inclined to act cordially and decisively with him, and hence vacillation and uncertainty in their councils. Palmerston alone was resolute; entrenched in a strong position, with unity and determination of purpose, quite unscrupulous, very artful, and in possession of the Foreign Office, and therefore able to communicate in whatever manner and with whomsoever he pleased, and to give exactly the turn he chose to any negotiation or communication, without the possibility of being controlled by any of his colleagues. From the beginning, Lord John seems never to have seen his way clearly, or to have been able to make up his mind how to act. My own opinion is, that if there had been a will, there might have been found a way, to do something; but Palmerston had no such will. On the contrary, he was resolved to defeat the intentions of his colleagues, and he has effectually done so. October 8th, 1840 {p.332} [Page Head: LORD JOHN'S LAST EFFORT.]