_May 21st._--I have been too much occupied with the Derby and Oaks to write about political matters, but I cannot omit a fresh Palmerstonian affair, as bad or worse than any which have preceded it. On Monday last Lord Lansdowne in reply to a question of Beaumont's said, that 'no communication whatever had been made by the Austrian Government to ours relative to their intervention in Italy,' the fact being that Colloredo had five or six days before gone to Palmerston, and communicated to him by order of his Government their motives, objects, and intentions, as to Italian intervention in great detail. This communication he never imparted to his colleagues, and Lord Lansdowne was consequently ignorant of it. On Tuesday the newspapers reported Lord Lansdowne's answer, on which Colloredo went to Palmerston to complain of it. At the Queen's ball on Wednesday night, Colloredo spoke to Lord Lansdowne and asked him why he had said what he did. Lord Lansdowne had nothing for it but to acknowledge his ignorance. On Friday, the first day on which the House met, I heard what had passed between Colloredo and Palmerston. I resolved to go to Lord Lansdowne. I found him at Lansdowne House, just going to the House of Lords. I began to tell him the object of my calling on him. He stopped me, said he knew all about it, that he was going to the House to correct his former statement, and 'to make the best excuse he could,' that it was exceedingly disagreeable, and the more unaccountable as he had taken the precaution on Monday before he went to the House of Lords to answer Beaumont, to send to the Foreign Office to enquire whether any communication had been received, and the reply was, 'None whatever.' On reference to Palmerston he had said that 'he had quite forgotten it,' and Lord Lansdowne told me that John Russell was as much in ignorance of it as he was himself. I saw that he was exceedingly annoyed, but nothing seems to rouse any of them to any serious manifestation of resentment and displeasure. This is as bad a case as can be, but will have no more result than any of Palmerston's other delinquencies. [Footnote 100: [Afterwards the Rt. Hon. Sir Frederic Peel, K.C.M.G., Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and a Railway Commissioner. He entered Parliament as member for Leominster in February 1849.]]