d they would fight with
England and France actively on their side!

At home, Lord Aberdeen said matters do not stand much better. Lord
John has convinced himself that, under present circumstances it
would not do for him to ask Lord Aberdeen to retire from the Prime
Ministership and let him step in in his place; perhaps he has found
out also that the Peelites will not serve under him; his own Whig
colleagues would very much regret if not object to such a change, and
that Lord Palmerston could not well submit to the arrangement. So
he told Lord Aberdeen that he had given up that idea; it was clear,
however, that he was now looking for an opportunity to break up the
Government on some popular ground, which it was impossible to hope
that he should not find. He now had asked for the immediate summoning
of Parliament, called for by the state of the Oriental Question. This
would create the greatest alarm in the country, and embarrassment to
the Government, and was therefore resisted. Lord Aberdeen told Lord
John quite plainly he knew what the proposal meant--he meant to break
up the Government. "I hope not," was Lord John's laughing reply.

The Queen taxed Lord Aberdeen with imprudence in talking to Lord
John of his own readiness to leave office, which he acknowledged, but
called _very natural_ in a man of seventy. Lord John was dissatisfied
with his position;... upon Lord Aberdeen telling him that he had the
most powerful and honourable position of any man in England as leader
of the House of Commons, he answered, "Oh, _there_ I am quite happy!"

I asked how under such circumstances that all-important measure of
Parliamentary Reform, upon which the future stability and well-being
of the Country so much depended, was to be matured and brought
forward? Lord Aberdeen replied that Lord John had it all ready and
prepared in his pocket, and told Lord Aberdeen so, adding, however,
that under present circumstances there was no use in bringing it
forward, to which Lord Aberdeen added: "You mean unless you sit in the
chair which I now occupy?" Lord John laughed.

We discussed the probable consequences of Lord John's retirement. Lord
Aberdeen thought that Lord Palmerston, Lord Lansdowne, and even Lord
Clarendon would secede with him, but this by no means implied that the
whole party would; Lord Palmerston would not coalesce with Lord John,
but try for the lead himself; Lord Clarendon quite agreed with Lord
Aberdeen, and had been ver