not be unacceptable to the Queen and the English people. He, therefore, selected Pélissier,[21] who, though ignorant of diplomacy, was not likely to fall into Persigny’s indiscretions, and whose appointment was received by the Queen as a token of renewed goodwill on the part of France. This attempt of Palmerston’s to drive a Ministry from office by getting a Foreign Government to menace it with hostility,[22] having ended in ignominious defeat, he and his party soon showed how bitterly they resented the failure of their conspiracy with the French Emperor and his Ambassador against English liberty. When Mr. Disraeli announced the settlement of the quarrel with France in the House of Commons, on the 13th of March, the Opposition received it sullenly, and immediately raised a bitter attack on Lord Malmesbury for not procuring the release of the English engineers who were imprisoned in the _Cagliari_.[23] Their arrest was illegal, and Lord Malmesbury, as soon as he obtained the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, not only procured their release, but liberal compensation for the annoyance to which they had been put. Where the Government broke down was in attempting to deal with the future administration of India; and it is a fact that had they but listened to the Queen’s advice, who strongly opposed their policy, they would have avoided a defeat which served to convince the people that the evil reputation of the Derby-Disraeli group for legislative incapacity was only too well founded. The Tories had opposed Palmerston’s India Bill, transferring the government of India to the Crown, so they were forced to bring in one of their own. Palmerston’s Indian Council consisted of nominated officials of high rank and ripe experience. The Tory Bill, which was devised by Lord Ellenborough, introduced into the Council a fantastic elective element. Four out of the Council of eighteen were to be chosen by holders of Indian Stock, and by Indian military and civil servants of ten years’ standing, and five were to be elected by the commercial constituencies of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Belfast. The Queen warned the Cabinet that these provisions were fatal to their Bill. The selection of the constituencies was arbitrary, and other cities would in time agitate for representation on the Council. The turmoil of democratic elections was not likely to influence for good Imperial policy in a country about which the electors could at best know little. But the Cabinet held that the electoral clauses would secure the Radical support necessary to carry the Bill, and the Queen, reluctant to bring about another Ministerial crisis, left the matter in the hands of her Ministers. But when Mr. Disraeli, on the 26th of March, introduced the Bill, to his surprise, the Radicals objected as strongly as the Queen to the electoral clauses. Mr. Roebuck complained that they gave a sham colour of democracy to what was really a despotic Government. Mr.