_Buxton, August 11th._--I came here for my health and to try and patch myself up a fortnight ago, since which I have heard and learnt nothing of what is passing in the world but what I read in the newspapers. The session of Parliament was drawing to a close, and it was understood that there was to be one more fight in the House of Commons (on the removal of the Customs duties on paper), and then the remaining business was to be hurried through as quickly as possible. The Opposition made strenuous efforts to obtain a majority, and were sanguine of success. The Speaker wrote me an account of what passed, and I shall copy out the greatest part of his letter. 'The division of thirty-three on the Paper Duties was a surprise to all on the spot. As late as eleven that evening Sir George Grey told us the division seemed very doubtful. The Irishmen held off indignant at Palmerston's having mentioned with approval the landing of Garibaldi on the mainland. This was held to be an insult to the Pope, so More O'Farrell, Monsell, Sir John Acton, and eight or ten more would not vote at all. It seemed doubtful to the last. It is a great thing for the Government in many ways, not the least in having won the battle without the Pope and his men. It puts the Government in so much better and stronger a position with that party. The great result is to give some life to half-dead, broken-down, tempest-tossed Gladstone. When after the division he rose to propose the second Resolution, he was cheered by the Free-traders as he had not been cheered since the Budget Speech. Colonel Taylor tells me they had been led to success by promises from two quarters. First the paper-makers and the "Times" engaged to bring fifty men to the post, and only brought five. The Irishmen promised to be twenty-five, but were only eleven, the others standing off and not voting. I have a long letter from Cobden, angry about fortifications and Volunteers.' This morning I received another letter from the Speaker, enclosing Cobden's, which he has sent me to read. He says, 'It is written in rather a spirit of exaggeration, but it is the fault of Cobden's mind to see one object so strongly, that his view cannot embrace another at the same time.' Cobden's is well written, and contains much that is true, but he has evidently been so cajoled and flattered at Paris that he is now completely bamboozled, and so credulous that he takes for gospel all the Emperor says, and complains bitterly of 'all that is going on at home' and especially of the tone of Palmerston's and Sidney Herbert's speeches. 'Believing,' he says, 'that the new French tariff will realise a complete revolution in the commercial relations of the two countries, and having taken pains to impress this opinion on the Government, I am amazed at the course they are taking. The language of Palmerston and Sidney Herbert, coupled with the fortification scheme (he says), cuts the ground, on which I urged the Emperor to enter on