Footnote 1: [It was the refusal of Lord John Russell to serve under Lord Granville which rendered the formation of a Cabinet by that statesman impossible. At the same time Lord John Russell expressed his willingness to serve under Lord Palmerston on condition of his taking the department of Foreign Affairs.] _June 26th._--All the time that the formation of the new Government was going on I was at a cottage near Windsor for the Ascot races, and consequently I heard nothing of the secret proceedings connected with the selection of those who come in, and the exclusion of those who belonged to Palmerston's last Government, nor have I as yet heard what passed on the subject.[1] The most remarkable of the exclusions is Clarendon's, who I was sure, when the Foreign Office was seized by John Russell, would take nothing else; and of the admissions, Gladstone's, who has never shown any good will towards Palmerston, and voted with Derby in the last division. This Government in its composition is curiously, and may prove fatally, like that which Aberdeen formed in 1852, of a very Peelite complexion, and only with a larger proportion of Radicals, though not enough, it is said, to satisfy their organs, and Bright is displeased that he has not been more consulted, and probably at office not having been more pressed upon him. It is still very doubtful whether Cobden will accept the place offered to him. The Tories are full of rancour, and express great confidence that this Government will not last, and that they shall all be recalled to power before the end of the year. Derby had a large gathering at Salisbury's house, when he made them a speech recommending union and moderation, the first of which recommendations they seem more likely to adopt than the second. The affair of his Garter was in this wise. On resigning he wrote to the Queen and besought her to bestow Red Ribands on Malmesbury and Pakington. She wrote him an answer acceding to his request, and adding that she could not allow him to retire a second time from her service without conferring upon him a mark of her sense of his services, and she therefore desired him to accept the Garter, though none was vacant. He told me this, and said it was the only way in which he could have taken it, as he never should have given it to himself, and I believe if a vacancy had occurred he meant to have given it to the Duke of Hamilton.