The first thing that strikes me is that the Cabinet ought to have accepted his resignation when he first tendered it; but there were no doubt difficulties and objections to that course, and their reluctance to let him throw himself overboard was not unnatural and was generous. The defence which his conduct really admits of may be (to state it very briefly) thus set forth. I put it loosely, and as it strikes me, taking a general view of the case; to make it more accurate and complete, the dates and the documents should be before me, which they are not. He went to Paris with instructions precisely corresponding with what was verbally arranged in London between Drouyn de Lhuys and the Cabinet, and they were conjointly to propose the conditions which the two Governments had agreed to require from Russia; but still they were not the bearers of an Ultimatum, they did not go to give law to Russia, or as judges to pronounce sentence upon her. They went to confer and to negotiate, to endeavour to obtain the precise terms which would be entirely satisfactory to their two Governments, and failing in this to see what they could obtain. If they were instructed to insist on the limitation, just as they proposed it at the Conference, and to accept nothing else, nothing either short of it or varying from it, then the very idea of a Conference and a negotiation was a mockery and a delusion. It was a mockery to invite the Russian plenipotentiary to make proposals, and the conduct of the Allies was disingenuous and deceitful. Certainly Austria never contemplated, still less would she have been a party to, such a course of proceeding; and her notion was, and, of course, that of Russia also, that there should be a _bonâ fide_ negotiation, and an attempt to bring about an understanding by the only way in which an understanding ever can be brought about--mutual concessions. We proposed the limitation scheme, and Austria backed us up in it cordially, sincerely, and forcibly, at least to all appearance. Russia rejected it on the ground of its incompatibility with her honour and dignity. Then Russia made proposals, which the Allies, Austria included, rejected as insufficient. John Russell and Drouyn de Lhuys appear to have fought vigorously in the spirit of their instructions, but when they found there was no chance of the Russians consenting to the limitation, they both became anxious to try some other plan, by which peace might possibly be obtained, and they each suggested something. At last, when the Conference was virtually at an end, as a last hope and chance Buol produced his scheme. John Russell had already committed himself to an approval of the principle of it, by the plan he had himself suggested, and, when he found that both his French and Turkish colleagues were willing to accept it, it is not surprising that he should have told Buol privately and confidentially that he acquiesced in it, and would urge it on his Government.