_Bowood, January 12th,_ 1853.--I came here on Monday to meet the Cannings, Harcourt,[1] and Lady Waldegrave, the Bessboroughs, Elphinstone, Senior, and the family. Senior talked to me about the Government and Reform, and the danger of their splitting on the latter question and propounded a scheme he has for obviating this danger. He wants to have a Royal Commission to enquire into the practice of bribery at elections and the means of preventing it, or, if possible, to have an enquiry of a more extensive and comprehensive character into the state of the representation and the working of the Reform Bill. We talked it over, and I told him I thought this would not be a bad expedient. He had already spoken to Lord Lansdowne about it, who seemed not averse to the idea, and promised to talk to Lord John Russell on the subject. Senior, when he went away, begged me to talk to Lord Lansdowne also, which I attempted to do, but without success, for he seemed quite indisposed to enter upon it. [Footnote 1: George Granville Harcourt, Esq., M.P., eldest son of the Archbishop of York, and third husband of Frances, Countess of Waldegrave.] LORD JOHN'S ARRANGEMENT DISAPPROVED. _Beaudesert, January 19th._--To town on Saturday and here on Monday, with the Flahaults, Bessboroughs, Ansons, my brothers and the family. Lord Anglesey and M. de Flahault talk over their campaigns, and compare notes on the events of Sir John Moore's retreat and other military operations, in which they have served in opposing armies. Flahault was aide-de-camp to Marshal Berthier till the middle of the Russian campaign, when he became aide-de-camp to Napoleon, whom he never quitted again till the end of his career. His accounts of what he has seen and known are curious and interesting. He says that one of the Emperor's greatest mistakes and the causes of his misfortunes was his habit of ordering everything, down to the minutest arrangement, himself, and leaving so little to the discretion and responsibility of his generals and others that they became mere machines, and were incapable of acting, or afraid to act, on their own judgements. On several occasions great calamities were the consequence of this unfortunate habit of Napoleon's.