she has poured her feelings and her wrongs into the more sympathetic ears of her late Ministers, and I believe that the Queen has told Peel everything--all her own feelings and wishes, and all that passes on the subject.” In these circumstances an anti-Palmerstonian cabal was naturally formed. Lord Aberdeen, a devoted friend of the Queen, attempted to organise a movement for driving Palmerston from office; but the great obstacle was Peel. Nothing could induce him to upset the Ministry which was pledged to procure a fair trial for Free Trade. The Court Party, however, suggested that, if censured, Palmerston might resign and his colleagues stay in; or that they might all resign, and then, when it was shown that no other Government could be formed, and that the Peelites could render the formation of another Ministry impossible, Lord John Russell and his colleagues might come back to power, without Lord Palmerston. The scheme failed; but, as Mr. Greville says, the curious thing to note about it is “the _carte du pays_ it exhibits,” and the remarkable and most improper position which Palmerston occupied _vis-à-vis_ the Queen and his own colleagues. “I know not,” writes Mr. Greville, “where to look for a parallel to such a mass of anomalies--the Queen turning from her own Prime Minister to confide in the one who was supplanted by him; a Minister talking over quietly and confidentially with an outsider by what circumstances and what agency his colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, might be excluded from the Government; the Queen abhorring her Minister, and unable to rid herself of him; John Russell, fascinated and subjugated by the ascendency of Palmerston, submitting to everything from him, and supporting him right and wrong, the others not concealing from those they are in the habit of confiding in their disapprobation of the conduct and policy of their colleague, while they are all the time supporting the latter and excusing the former, and putting themselves under the obligation of identifying themselves with his proceedings, and standing or falling with them.”[2] [Illustration: SIR CHARLES NAPIER.]