appreciate the motives which have guided the Government. Lord Aberdéen and Lord John will always receive every support from the Queen when they shall think it right to propose the reintroduction of the measure.
Memorandum by the Prince Albert.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE, 10th Aprih 1854. Lord Aberdeen has just left the Queen, after an interview which he had had with Sir James Graham and Lord John Russell at Lord John’s request. He reported that at that interview Lord John renewed his complaint of the Cabinet, declared that he could not state to the House what was untrue, and must therefore resign. Lord Aberdeen called this “ really too monstrous” after the pledge given by the Sovereign, himself as Prime Minister, and the whole Cabinet, with the exception of one man, and he would repeat his promise that whenever Lord John said, “The Reform Bill is to come on,” and Lord Palmerston opposed it, he should go.
Lord John could not be appeased, but spoke with the greatest bitterness. He had written to Lord Palmerston in the same sense; and Lord Palmerston’s answer arrived during the interview. It was to the effect that if one of them was to resign, it was not Lord John, who agreed with the rest of the Cabinet upon the Bill, but himself, who was the dissentient. Lord Aberdeen asked Lord John whether Lord Palmerston’s resignation would satisfy him ; to which he answered, he believed it would not mend matters. Lord Aberdeen’s opinion, however, is that it is what Lord John, and still more what Lady John, wants. He thinks the Country will never understand how the Government could break up, and that Lord John is cutting his own throat, and told him so.. If Lord John went, he could not go on with Lord Palmerston as Leader of the House of Commons, which he called “perfectly ludicrous.” Lord Palmerston would probably insist upon this, however; Lord Palmerston’s retirement would be a great blow to the Government, as the Country persisted in thinking him the only able War Minister, and would cry out at “the imbecile old Head of the Government having it now all his own way.” He thought, should he not be able to go on, new combinations could be formed, perhaps under the Duke of Newcastle and Mr Gladstone, as the Country liked younger men. Lord John must give his answer in the House of Commons tomorrow at half-past four. Lord Aberdeen would wish to see the Duke of Newcastle, Sir James Graham, and Mr Gladstone, as his more particular friends, this evening, to discuss the
