It is very difficult to record accurately a conversation in which we often diverged and then returned to the same topic. I pressed him hard on his want of openness and confidence, and urged that when the two countries had been so long on such terms of amity, and the two Sovereigns also, that before he proceeded to act in so serious and decisive a manner and which could not fail to offend England, he ought to have left nothing vague, but have said distinctly and at once what he intended to do. He ought, if he took the note of February 27 as his justification, to ascertain that Palmerston was cognisant of that note. Why did he not as soon as he came into office renew to Palmerston the notice he had thought it necessary to convey to Aberdeen, and why not say frankly that he regarded the state of the case to be such that, acting on the right he had reserved to himself, he should send instructions to Bresson to conclude the marriages. His answers to this were very weak. He said that it was not his business to look after Palmerston's affairs, and that he had a right to conclude, since Aberdeen had communicated with him, that he had imparted to him this note; that he showed confidence to those who showed confidence to him, and that he did not think Palmerston had acted towards him in such a manner as to require such confidential communication on his part. His real reason was (though I did not think it necessary to charge him with it), that if he had given notice to Palmerston, the latter would have sent off to Madrid and probably counteracted his scheme. He insisted that his letters to Jarnac, and the conversation he had had with Lord Cowley (which he repeated to me word for word as Lord Cowley had done), were warning enough and were sufficient indication of his intentions. Besides that Bresson's instructions were general, he had had them above a year with a discretionary power to act upon them whenever he had reason to believe the Coburg marriage was _imminent_, which case he contended had arrived. I said if its imminence arose from our despatch, Bresson had himself created it, inasmuch as he had shown it to the Spanish Government. He said that was not true, that Bresson had given him his most positive assurance that though he had spoken of it to different people he had never shown it to the Spanish Ministers. He spoke with great energy of the King's feelings and of his own, especially at the strong language that had been applied to him personally, and of his having been accused in a formal document as well as in a letter, of _bad faith_; that it was impossible to transact business with any confidence and in a useful manner with those who charged him with bad faith. Such accusations were intolerable. He then spoke of his letter to John Russell; that he had only intended to call his attention to the difficulty of going on with Palmerston while he put such a tone into the discussions; that it was absurd to suppose that he