Lady Ashburton told me she had received a letter from Ellice, telling her that the affair in the House of Commons had produced the most serious effect, and that it would probably end in the retirement of John Russell, and eventually to a change of Government. He had got a story, which I utterly disbelieve, that Milner Gibson had been instigated by John Russell himself to give him this opportunity of saying what he did, which was certainly more than he need have said.[1] Lord John seems for some time past to have been bereft of his senses, and to commit nothing but blunders one after another. What has been passing in his mind, and what his real objects are or have been, it would puzzle anybody to say. If he had personal views and wanted to regain the station and power which he had lost, never did any man take such false steps and pursue so erroneous a course to obtain his ends. He had in some measure retrieved the character and consideration which he forfeited by his conduct at the beginning of this year; but I do not see how he is ever to get over this, nor how his followers can any longer have any confidence in him, and I do not believe the country at large ever will. As to his opinion on the terms of peace, I agree with it, and think it would have been wiser to close with Buol's proposal, and to continue to negotiate; but this makes no difference as to his conduct in the affair, for which there is no excuse. He never ought to have committed himself at Vienna; his instructions were clear and precise and quite inconsistent with Buol's proposition. He might have engaged to bring it before his Government, but should, especially as he was a Cabinet Minister, have abstained from expressing any opinion of his own upon it. He appears at Vienna to have been easily talked over, and to have been exceedingly wanting in diplomatic finesse and penetration; but all I have picked up here in conversation proves to me that there have been errors innumerable and the greatest mistakes in the conduct of these affairs throughout, and the exigencies of the alliance and the necessity of concerting everything to the most minute particular with both Cabinets have produced results not less unfortunate in diplomacy than in war. The affair before Sebastopol the night before last turns out to have been of no importance, only a demonstration against the English lines.