what passed in December last, and join the Grey Party in preference to
Lord John personally. The curious part of all this is that they
cannot keep a secret, and speak of all their differences. They got
the _Times_ over by giving it exclusive information, and the leading
articles are sent in and praise the new Cabinet, but the wicked paper
added immediately a furious attack upon Sir John Hobhouse, which
alarmed them so much that they sent to Sir John, sounding him, whether
he would be hereafter prepared to relinquish the Board of Control.
(This, however, is a mere personal matter of Mr Walter, who stood
against Sir John at Nottingham in 1841 and was unseated.) Sir John
Easthope, the proprietor of the _Morning Chronicle_, complains
bitterly of the subserviency to the _Times_ and treason to him. He
says he knows that the information was sent from Lord John's house,
and threatens revenge. "If you will be ruled by the _Times_," he
said to one of the Cabinet, "the _Times_ has shown you already by a
specimen that you will be ruled by a rod of iron."

[Footnote 16: In spite of the opposition of the latter to
Palmerston's re-appointment to the Foreign Office. See _ante_,
p. 60.]

A Brevet for the Army and Navy is proposed, in order to satisfy Lord
Anglesey with the dignity of Field-Marshal.

ALBERT.

The Protectionists, 150 strong, including Peers and M.P.'s, are to
give a dinner to Lord Stanley at Greenwich, at which he is to announce
his opinions upon the line they are to take. Lord George Bentinck is
there to lay down the lead which the Party insisted upon. Who is to
follow him as their leader in the Commons nobody knows.

[Pageheading: A WEAK GOVERNMENT]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _7th July 1846._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--I have to thank you for your kind letter of the
3rd. It arrived yesterday, which was a very hard day for me. I had to
part with Sir R. Peel and Lord Aberdeen, who are irreparable losses
to us and the Country; they were both so much overcome that it quite
overset me, and we have in them two devoted friends. We felt so safe
with them. Never, during the five years that they were with me, did
they _ever_ recommend a _person_ or a thing which was not for my or
the Country's best, and never for the Party's advantage only; and the
contrast _now_ is very striking; there is much less respect and much
less high and pure feeling. Then the discretion of P