[Footnote 51: [On May 24 Mitchell, one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Party, was convicted of felony under the Act for the better security of the Crown and Government, and sentenced to be transported for fourteen years. The sentence was immediately carried into effect. It occasioned some commotion and disturbance amongst the Chartists and Irish in London and elsewhere.]] [Sidenote: MIRASOL'S MISSION.] _May 31st._--Yesterday Lord Grey called on the Duke of Bedford to talk over the Spanish affair, at which he is beginning to kick, though very gently. The present state of the case is this: from all that appears in public, the Spanish Government has been wholly unjustifiable, and we are not likely to know more as yet, for Mirasol[52] having brought no credentials, Palmerston refuses to receive him, and has desired him to convey what he has to say through Isturitz; but he came away in such a hurry (running a race with Bulwer) that he left all his papers behind him, and accordingly he has nothing to show. What between the awkwardness of the Spaniards, the artfulness of Palmerston, and the reluctance there is on all sides to push the Government to extremities, it appears most likely that the discussions in Parliament will produce no other result than a good deal of talk, and some expression of an opinion that the Spanish Government has been very impertinent. But nobody cares about the affront they have offered us, for the simple reason that it is universally considered as aimed at Palmerston and Bulwer, and that both have provoked it by their own insolent and unbecoming interference, the matter and the manner of which are equally condemned. It is now reported that Palmerston means to insist on sending Bulwer back to Madrid, for no other reason, of course, than to make the Spaniards eat humble pie; and, for the sake of achieving a personal triumph, he will not mind making the English Government and country odious in Spain. Every day the difficulties of the Government increase, and its weakness becomes more apparent, but without any tolerable alternative presenting itself. The friends and subordinates of the Government acknowledge this. There is a general sense of rottenness, and a consciousness that they inspire no confidence. Hawes told me yesterday that 'he was nobody, and could only shrug up his shoulders at all he saw.' They were beaten last night (on small matters, it is true) in both Houses,[53] and now there appears a very good chance of their being beaten on the resolutions of the West Indian Committee, which has reported to the House in favour of a duty on sugar of ten shillings for six years. Lord John at once declared he should oppose it. The division in the Committee was a very curious one; this resolution was carried by seven to five, and by a strange crossing over of opposite parties. Goulburn and Cardwell did not vote; two or three Whigs voted for it.