There was a meeting at John Russell's in the morning; no one was present but Palmerston, Cottenham, Clarendon, and Macaulay, who came in at the end. The letters convening his other friends had not reached them in time. X---- came to me afterwards and told me what had passed. The Queen wrote to Lord John, and summoned him to her presence. Sir Robert Peel had resigned, and she had thought it expedient to send for him to assist her. He asked her why Peel had resigned? She said that since November last he had been satisfied that the time was arrived when the Corn Laws must be repealed, but that the difficulty he had found with his Cabinet had at length induced him to resign. Lord John then said that, before he could undertake anything, he must know what would be Peel's course in respect to the measures he should propose, and what chance he should have of being able to carry them. The Queen told him that Peel had given her every assurance of his support. He left her without anything being settled, and he is in fact not yet Minister. At the meeting yesterday, Cottenham alone was against undertaking it; but Lord John was pretty well determined, only they all agreed that he must feel his way and obtain some positive information as to the sort and amount of support which Peel would and could give him. Clarendon urged this very strongly, and Lord John quite agreed. This morning, at eleven o'clock, they are all to assemble at his house, and in the afternoon Lord John and Lord Lansdowne are to go down to Windsor together. Nothing will, I apprehend, be definitively settled till some communication, direct or indirect, has taken place between Peel and John Russell, so that the latter may have some certain knowledge of the intentions of the former. Lord John has, however, already had some communication with Graham, but I do not know what.[112] The language at Brooks's is generally that of extreme despondency; but I have done my best to encourage them, and have told all those I have communicated with (and most of them come to me for information or an opinion) that the new Government will not fail. I met Lord Lansdowne last night, and I found that he meant to come back to his old office. However, the distribution of places will be a very difficult matter, the adjustment of claims and expectations, and making these square with the exigencies of the crisis.