Administration,
declared himself ready to do what he could towards the formation of a
new Government on an extended basis, but thought that Sir James Graham
and Lord Aberdeen should have the first offer.

I went accordingly over to my room, where Sir James was waiting. He
was entirely taken by surprise by the announcement of the resignation
of the Government, and begged to be able to state to me how he was
situated before he saw the Queen and Lord John.

I then communicated to him what had passed with Lord Stanley, upon
which we had a conversation of more than an hour, of which the chief
features were:

1. Apprehension on the part of Sir James Graham lest the attempt on
the part of Lord Stanley to re-impose Protective duties should produce
universal commotion in the country, which would be increased by the
Dissolution, without which Lord Stanley would not be able to proceed.

2. His disbelief that Lord Aberdeen would be able to join in any
Government abandoning Sir R. Peel's principles, as he had been
consulted before and after Sir James's late speech in which he
expressed his entire concurrence.

3. His own utter weakness, calling himself the weakest man in England,
who had lost his only friend in Sir R. Peel, and had for the last
fifteen years not exercised an independent judgment, but rested
entirely on his friend.

4. His disagreement with some of his late colleagues--the Duke of
Newcastle, Mr Gladstone, and Mr Sidney Herbert--in religious opinions.

5. His disagreement with Lord John's Government upon some most
important points.

He could not take office with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary,
whose policy and mode of conducting business he disapproved, who
was now protesting against the admission of Austria into the German
Confederation; he disapproved the Papal Aggression Bill, finding it
militating against the line which he had taken as Secretary of State
with regard to the Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, and particularly
the Bequest Act, and considering that after Lord John's letter the
Bill would fall short of the high expectations formed in the minds of
the English public.

He disapproved of the abolition of the Irish Lord-Lieutenancy, and the
making a fourth Secretary of State had been considered by Sir
Robert Peel and himself as introducing into England all the Irish
malpractices, while Ireland was still kept wholly separate from
England.

Lord John had raised a new difficulty by his dec