Last night in the House of Lords Palmerston got the hardest hit he has ever yet had, though his skin is so impenetrably thick that he will hardly feel it. Some nights ago Bankes had asked a question about the Sicilian arms, which Palmerston answered in his usual offhand way, and as usual the matter fell flat, nobody appearing to think or care anything about it. Palmerston made a sort of explanation, such as it was, without a word in it of regret or excuse, as if it had been all quite natural and right. But the matter did not go off so easily in the Lords. Stanley stated the case he had heard, and asked if it was true. Lord Lansdowne at once owned it was true; he called it 'an inadvertence'! But he said that as soon as it was known to the Cabinet, they were deliberately of opinion that the permission ought to have been withheld, and that instructions had been sent to Temple in case any complaint was made, to apologise, explain, and promise nothing of the sort should ever recur. A more mortifying declaration for Palmerston (if anything can mortify him) could not well be, and it was besides an exposure not to be mistaken. If this affair had stood alone, it might have passed for an inadvertence, but conjoined with all the other circumstances of the case, and the general tenor of Palmerston's Italian policy, nothing can well be worse. Palmerston is _safe_ enough as far as his office is concerned, and the Government will not be shaken, but it is damaging beyond all doubt, and when the question comes to be regularly discussed, Stanley, though now too late, will give him a tremendous dressing. [Sidenote: AFFAIR OF THE SICILIAN ARMS.] _March 16th._--I have been entirely occupied with the labour and trouble of migration from Grosvenor Place to Bruton Street, where I took up my abode yesterday evening, and the consequence is that I have not found time to write a line about passing events.[92]