The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume Ii Part 113

[Pageheading: DEATH OF LADY DALHOUSIE]

_The Earl of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria._

_12th July 1853._

Lord Dalhousie presents his humble duty to your Majesty, most gratefully acknowledging the gracious words which your Majesty has addressed to him in the time of his great affliction.[21]

Your Majesty has been pleased for many years to honour him with frequent marks of personal distinction. He is indeed most keenly sensible of the favour which bestowed them all. But his deep grat.i.tude must ever be given to the goodness which dictated the touching a.s.surance he has now received of your Majesty's interest in the piteous fate of one who for eighteen years has been all the world to him, whose patient, gentle spirit, and whose brave heart had turned aside so many perils, and who yet has sunk at last under the very means on which all had securely reckoned as her certain safety.

Lord Dalhousie ought not perhaps to have uttered even this much of his sorrow, but your Majesty's truly gracious words have melted it from his heart; and still encourage him to believe that your Majesty will not regard it as obtrusive.

Lord Dalhousie will not mingle the other topics, on which it is his duty to address your Majesty, with this respectful expression of the enduring grat.i.tude, with which he has the honour to subscribe himself, your Majesty's most obedient, most humble, and most faithful Subject and Servant,

DALHOUSIE.

[Footnote 21: Lady Dalhousie died on the 6th of May, on her pa.s.sage home from India.]

[Pageheading: PALMERSTON'S ATt.i.tUDE]

_The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria._

LONDON, _11th September 1853._

Lord Aberdeen presents his most humble duty to your Majesty....

Lord Aberdeen has by no means forgotten the conversation to which your Majesty has referred; but after full consideration he believes that the safest and best course has been adopted.[22] Trusting to your Majesty's gracious condescension, and the confidence with which Lord Aberdeen has been honoured, he will humbly venture to lay before your Majesty, without any reserve, the motives which have induced him to offer this advice to your Majesty.

The situation of Lord Palmerston is peculiar.[23] Unless he should continue to be a cordial member of your Majesty's Government, he may very easily become the leader of Opposition. Lord Aberdeen is at this moment ignorant of his real views and intentions. He has been recently more than once thwarted in his endeavours to press a hostile policy upon the Cabinet; and it has been reported to Lord Aberdeen that he has expressed himself in terms of great hostility. This cannot perhaps be avoided, and is only the result of taking different views of the public interest; but it is very essential that Lord Palmerston should have no personal or private cause of complaint against Lord Aberdeen.

From his office of Home Secretary he might naturally expect to have the honour of attending your Majesty; and should this not be the case he might probably resent it and attribute it to the jealousy and ill-will of Lord Aberdeen. But whether he did this, or not, himself, the Public and the Press would not fail to do so, and would convert this neglect into the ground of the most hostile and bitter attacks.

Your Majesty may perhaps be aware that there is no amount of flattery which is not offered to Lord Palmerston by the Tory party, with the hope of separating him altogether from the Government.

Lord Aberdeen fully admits that this step which he has humbly proposed to your Majesty may fail to produce any good effect, and that it may even be turned hereafter to the injury of the Government; but, at all events, Lord Aberdeen's conscience will be clear; and if Lord Palmerston has any generous feelings, it is not impossible that he may appreciate favourably a proceeding which cannot but afford him personal satisfaction.

[Footnote 22: Lord Aberdeen had suggested that it would be advisable for several reasons that Lord Palmerston should be invited to Balmoral as Minister in attendance, and he accordingly went there on the 15th of September.]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon._

BALMORAL, _24th September 1853._

The Queen has this morning received Lord Clarendon's letter of the 22nd inst. She has not been surprised at the line taken by Austria, who, Lord Clarendon will remember, the Queen never thought could be depended upon, as she is not in that independent position which renders a National Policy possible. The accounts from Constantinople are very alarming, and make the Queen most anxious for the future. She quite approves of the steps taken by the Government. The presence of the Fleets at Constantinople in case of general disturbance will take from the Emperor of Russia what Lord Cowley calls his _coup de Theatre a la Sadlers Wells_, viz.: the part of the generous protector of the Sultan and restorer of Order.[24]

[Footnote 23: Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell led the war party in the Cabinet; but the latter was pledged to the introduction of a Reform Bill, while the former was opposed to the scheme. Lord Aberdeen's pacific views were making him increasingly unpopular in the country.]

[Footnote 24: Even after the Russian occupation of the Princ.i.p.alities, which the Russian Minister, Count Nesselrode, had described as not an act of war, but a material guarantee for the concession by Turkey of the Russian demands, the resources of diplomacy were not exhausted. The Four Powers--England, France, Austria, and Prussia--agreed, in conference at Vienna, to present a note for acceptance by Russia and the Porte, to the effect (_inter alia_) that the Government of the Sultan would remain faithful "to the letter and to the spirit of the Treaties of Kainardji and Adrianople relative to the protection of the Christian religion." This was most unfortunately worded, but, however, the clause had obtained the sanction of the English Government, and the Czar expressed his willingness to accept it. Lord Stratford, however, saw the danger underlying the ambiguity of the language, and, under his advice, the Porte proposed as an amendment the subst.i.tution of the words "to the stipulations of the Treaty of Kainardji, confirmed by that of Adrianople, relative to the protection by the Sublime Porte of the Christian religion." The Russian Government refused to accept this amendment, and from that moment war was inevitable. The British Fleet under Admiral Dundas had been sent from Malta to the East at the beginning of June.]

[Pageheading: THE VIENNA NOTE]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen._

BALMORAL, _25th September 1853._

The Queen has received Lord Aberdeen's letter of the 23rd, and is very thankful to him for this full and lucid statement of the present very critical situation.

She transmits to him a memorandum containing our views, drawn up by the Prince with the desire he might also communicate it to Lord Clarendon.[25]

The Queen must say she now rejoices the Fleets should be on their way to Constantinople.

G.o.d grant that any outbreak at Constantinople may yet be averted.

[Footnote 25: The Memorandum stated that it would be fruitless further to attempt to settle the dispute by the "Redaction" of Notes to be exchanged between Turkey and Russia, or the choice of particular words and expressions in public doc.u.ments designed in order to avoid naming the real objects in dispute.

"It is evident" (it was added) "that Russia has. .h.i.therto attempted to deceive us in pretending that she did not aim at the acquisition of any _new_ Right, but required only a satisfaction of honour and a re-acknowledgment of the Rights she already possessed by Treaty; that she _does intend_ and for the first time lays bare that intention, to acquire _new_ Rights of interference which the Porte does _not_ wish to concede and cannot concede, and which the European Powers have repeatedly declared she _ought not_ to concede....

"If the views of Russia, for instance, with regard to 'Modification III. of the Note,' were to prevail, the extension of the advantages and privileges enjoyed by Christian communities, in their capacity as _foreigners_, to the Greeks generally, with the Right granted to Russia to intercede for them to this effect, would simply make foreigners of 10,000,000 of the subjects of the Porte, or depose the Sultan as their sovereign, putting the Emperor of Russia in his place."]

_The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria._

LONDON, _6th October 1853._

... The Cabinet will meet to-morrow; and Lord Aberdeen will have the honour of humbly reporting to your Majesty the result of their discussions. It will be Lord Aberdeen's endeavour to prevent any rash decision; and, above all, to keep open the possibility of peaceful communications. No doubt, it may be very agreeable to humiliate the Emperor of Russia; but Lord Aberdeen thinks that it is paying a little too dear for this pleasure, to check the progress and prosperity of this happy country, and to cover Europe with confusion, misery, and blood.

[Pageheading: MOVEMENTS OF THE FLEET]

_The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria._