_December 12th._--I begin to think that I am after all mistaken as to Palmerston's intentions, and that his ambition will drive him to sacrifice everything and risk everything, in spite of his age and of all the difficulties he will have to encounter. I have said what passed between the Duke of Bedford and Lady Palmerston about Reform. This morning the Duke of Bedford came here, and told me he had called on Clarendon on Saturday, when he said to Clarendon that he was very uneasy about Palmerston, and thought he was meditating something, though he did not know exactly what he was at. Clarendon interrupted him--'Certainly, he is meditating breaking up the Government; in fact, he told me so.' At this moment it was announced that two or three foreign Ministers were waiting to see him, when he abruptly broke off the conference, and they parted. I said, 'Depend upon it, what Clarendon alluded to was not the Reform Bill, but the Eastern Question; and it is on that that Palmerston is making a stir.' The Duke said he thought so too; indeed, he was sure of it, because Clarendon did not trouble himself about Reform, and he had already told him more than once what excessive trouble and annoyance he had had between the widely opposite views and opinions of Aberdeen and Palmerston, and that he had only been able to go on at all from the agreement between Lord John and himself. However, Lord John is to see Aberdeen this morning, and his brother afterwards; and before the day is over we shall learn something more of this disagreeable matter. My belief is that the differences between Aberdeen and Palmerston have arrived at a height which threatens a break up, and that, with reference to this occurring, Palmerston is also going back on the Reform question; that if he does separate from the Government, he may reserve to himself to work _both_ questions. But I refrain from further speculations, as in a few hours they will be resolved into certainty of some sort. LORD PALMERSTON'S RESIGNATION.