_February 23rd._--On Monday night Wood came suddenly down to the House of Commons, and proposed to refer the Army and Navy Estimates to a secret Committee, and then the miscellaneous estimates. This scheme was violently attacked, particularly the secrecy. Disraeli spoke forcibly against it. Peel came to the rescue. The effect was very bad: a confession of weakness and perplexity, and the Government lost credit. Last night Wood again proposed the Committees, owned he was wrong about their being _secret_, and asked for 'select.' Disraeli attacked him very severely; Peel came forward handsomely, spoke for the Committees, but defended the estimates, and talked very sensibly about them and defences, ridiculing Ellesmere's letter very much. Delane had a long interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer the day before yesterday, who told him he had been driven to his present expedient by the deplorable effect of Lord John's speech, which appears to have inflicted _tortures_ on his colleagues all the time he was delivering it. He not only (Wood said) said all that he ought not to have done, and made great mistakes in his way of dealing with the subject, but he omitted a great part of what he was to have said, two points especially: Ireland, and what had been done there, and the Spanish marriage question, _which it had been his intention to throw over_! It certainly is remarkable that he showed none of the tact and dexterity which usually pre-eminently distinguish him; he had not been well, and was oppressed with the subject. The effect was very bad, and, as usual, his meaning ridiculously distorted and misrepresented. All the friends of the Government are exceedingly alarmed, and we do certainly appear to be very near a deadlock. [Sidenote: LORD WILLIAM HERVEY.] In reference to the Spanish marriage question, I have had some concern in stopping what would have been a very mischievous publication. William Hervey, who is mad on it, has written an elaborate _polÈmique_ in the shape of a pamphlet, or rather book. He sent this over last summer to Clarendon, who, not having time to read it, asked George Lewis to prepare it for, and correct, the press; but first it was sent to Palmerston. He kept it some months, and about Christmas sent it to Lewis, with his imprimatur; Lewis, by accident, mentioned it to me just as he was correcting the last sheets. I thought it so objectionable that I begged him not to let it be published without John Russell's knowledge and approval. Lord John said he would not let it appear, for such a publication, at the moment when the Duchesse de Montpensier's _grossesse_ is announced, would be irritating to the last degree, and nothing could be more indiscreet.[37]