strenuously resist its being persevered in at this moment against a feeling and opinion which are all but universal. On the whole, I rather expect (but with much doubt) that Lord John will yield to the general sentiment, and consent to postpone it. _February 27th._--We are on the very verge of a Ministerial crisis. John Russell will listen to no reason about his Reform Bill, he insists on going on with it, and will have it that his honour and character demand that he should, and he says, 'When the honour of public men is preserved, the country is safe.' Clarendon dined here yesterday, and told me he thought Lord John would break up the Government. It is, in fact, a political duel between Lord John and Palmerston. ---- thinks, and probably he is right, that at the last moment Palmerston will give way, but in the meantime he himself and all his followers and admirers are moving Heaven and earth to defeat the measure, and to set up opposition to it--none more active than Hayter, Secretary to the Treasury, whose borough is one of those to be disfranchised. Everybody thinks Sir Edward Denny's motion will be carried, and if it is that Lord John will retire. If it were not for the difficulty about leading the House of Commons, this would not signify. I do not see how any arrangement is possible but that Palmerston should take the lead, but I do not know if this will not lead to other resignations. Clarendon is indignant at the state of things brought about by Lord John's obstinacy. He told me that Graham supported Lord John vehemently, but that Aberdeen took no strong part, and had behaved very well. Having accepted Lord John's Reform measure, and pledged himself to it, he was ready still to abide by that pledge. There never was such a _mess_ as it all is. Clarendon is now very hot on this war, which he fancies is to produce great and uncontemplated effects. He says for very many years past Russia has been the great incubus on European improvement, and the real cause of half the calamities that have afflicted the world, and he thinks a great opportunity now presents itself of extinguishing her pernicious influence, and by liberating other countries from it, the march of improvement and better government will of necessity be developed and accelerated, and in this way civilisation itself may be the gainer by this contest. The Emperor Napoleon has earnestly pressed that our contingent should be put under the command of the French Marshal, to which we have altogether objected, and he has acquiesced, though reluctantly. We have agreed on a sort of _mezzo termine_, viz. that, in the event of a battle in which both forces are engaged, they should be under one Commander-in-Chief, who must be the Frenchman. Clarendon lamented that he had got no better Minister at Vienna than Westmorland just now, who though well meaning is nearly useless, as Colloredo is here, who will take nothing on himself. He says Castelbajac at St.