andum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious
glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages--the
anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,
and the reasonable animosity of Albert--drawn together, as it were,
under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial
anger--the gay, portentous Palmerston. At one point in the conversation
Lord John observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary would consent
to a change of offices; Lord Palmerston, he said, realised that he had
lost the Queen's confidence--though only on public, and not on personal,
grounds. But on that, the Prince noted, "the Queen interrupted Lord John
by remarking that she distrusted him on PERSONAL grounds also, but I
remarked that Lord Palmerston had so far at least seen rightly; that he
had become disagreeable to the Queen, not on account of his person, but
of his political doings--to which the Queen assented." Then the Prince
suggested that there was a danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of
Lord Palmerston returning to office as Prime Minister. But on that point
Lord John was reassuring: he "thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much
in the future (having passed his sixty-fifth year)." Eventually it was
decided that nothing could be done for the present, but that the UTMOST
SECRECY must be observed; and so the conclave ended.

At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand. There were signs
that the public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of
Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British
subject, in a quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the
point of involving the country in a war not only with Greece but also
with France, and possibly with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud
of distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering and about to burst
over his head. A motion directed against him in the House of Lords was
passed by a substantial majority. The question was next to be discussed
in the House of Commons, where another adverse vote was not improbable,
and would seal the doom of the Minister. Palmerston received the attack
with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last possible moment, he
struck. In a speech of over four hours, in which exposition, invective,
argument, declamation, plain talk and resounding eloquence were mingled
together