The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume Iii Part 108

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._

94 PICCADILLY, _26th July 1861_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to be allowed to make his grateful and respectful acknowledgments for your Majesty's gracious and condescending acquiescence in his recommendation of Mr Layard for the appointment of Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign Department. It is always a source of most sincere pain to Viscount Palmerston to find himself differing, on any point, in opinion with your Majesty, a respect for whose soundness of judgment, and clearness of understanding, must always lead him to distrust the value of his own conclusions when they differ from those to which your Majesty has arrived. But the question about Mr Layard turned mainly upon considerations connected with the conduct of public business of your Majesty's Government in the House of Commons.

Viscount Palmerston sits in that House four days in every week during the Session of Parliament, from half-past four in the afternoon to any hour however late after midnight at which the House may adjourn. It is his duty carefully to watch the proceedings of the House, and to observe and measure the fluctuating bearings of Party and of sectional a.s.sociations on the present position of the Government, and on its chances for the future; and he is thus led to form conclusions as to persons and parties which may not equally strike, or with equal force, those who from without and from higher regions may see general results without being eye- and ear-witnesses of the many small and successive details out of which those results are built up.

It was thus that Viscount Palmerston was led to a strong conviction that the proposed appointment of Mr Layard would be a great advantage to your Majesty's Government as regards the conduct of business in the House of Commons, and the position of your Majesty's Government in that House; and he is satisfied that he will be able to prevent Mr Layard in any subsidiary part which he may have to take in any discussion on foreign questions, from departing from the line which may be traced out for him by Lord John Russell and Viscount Palmerston....

[Pageheading: THE KING OF SWEDEN]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

OSBORNE, _13th August 1861_.

MY BELOVED UNCLE,--Since Sat.u.r.day we have great heat. _Our_ King of Sweden[28] arrived yesterday evening. We went out in the yacht to meet him, and did so; but his s.h.i.+p going slow, the _dress_ of the _hohen Herrn only_ arrived at a quarter to nine, and we only sat down to dinner at a quarter past nine! The King and Prince Oscar[29] are very French, and very Italian! I think that there is a dream of a Scandinavian Kingdom floating before them. The King is a fine-looking man.... He is not at all difficult to get on with, and is very civil.

Oscar is very amiable and mild, and very proud of his three little boys. They leave again quite early to-morrow.

Our _dear_ children leave us, alas! on Friday quite early, for Antwerp.[30] It will again be a painful trial! Their stay has been very pleasant and _gemuthlich_, and we have seen more of and known dear Fritz more thoroughly than we ever did before, and really he is _very_ excellent, and would, I am convinced, make an excellent King.

The little children are _very great_ darlings, and we shall miss them sadly.

On the 16th we go to poor, dear Frogmore, and on the 17th we shall visit that dear grave! Last year she was still so well, and so full of life; but it was a _very_ sad birthday, two days after the loss of that dear beloved sister, whom she has joined so soon! Oh! the agony of _Wehmuth_, the bitterness of the blank, do _not_ get better with time! Beloved Mamma, how hourly she is in my mind!

The King of Prussia will have great pleasure in visiting you at Wiesbaden; he will arrive at Ostend on the 16th....

Good-bye, and G.o.d bless you, dearest Uncle. Ever your devoted Niece,

VICTORIA R.

[Footnote 28: Charles XV., who succeeded to the throne in 1859.]

[Footnote 29: Brother and heir to Charles XV., whom he succeeded, as Oscar II., in 1872; died 1907.]

[Footnote 30: The Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, accompanied by their two children, were on a visit to the Queen.]

[Pageheading: SWEDISH POLITICS]

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._

DOWNING STREET, _14th August 1861_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and hastens to answer the enquiry contained in your Majesty's note, which was delivered to him at Southampton. He must, in the first place, explain that much of what was said to him by the King of Sweden and by Prince Oscar was not clearly understood by him. They would both speak English--which they spoke with difficulty and in an indistinct utterance of voice--and he did not like to break the conversation into French, because to have done so would have looked like a condemnation of their English, of any imperfection of which they did not seem to be at all conscious.

The King was very guarded in all he said about France; the Prince spoke with more freedom and with less caution. The result of what Viscount Palmerston gathered from their conversation, and perhaps for this purpose they may be put together, because they probably both feel and think nearly alike, though the Prince lets his thoughts out more than the King, may be summed up as follows.

They were much pleased and flattered by the kind and friendly reception given them by the French Emperor, and both he and they seem to have had present to their minds that the existing Royal Family of Sweden is descended from General Bernadotte--a General in the Army of the First Napoleon. They think the French Emperor sincerely desirous of maintaining his alliance with England, believing it to be for his interest to do so. But they consider the French Nation essentially aggressive, and they think that the Emperor is obliged to humour that national feeling, and to follow, as far as the difference of circ.u.mstances will allow, the policy of his Uncle. They consider the principle of nationalities to be the deciding principle of the day, and accordingly Venetia ought to belong to Italy, Poland ought to be severed from Russia, and Finland ought to be restored to Sweden.

Holstein should be purely German with its own Duke, Schleswig should be united to Denmark, and when the proper time comes, Denmark, so const.i.tuted, ought to form one Monarchy with Sweden and Norway. But they see that there are great if not insuperable obstacles to all these arrangements, and they do not admit that the Emperor of the French talked to them about these things, or about the map of Europe revised for 1860. They lamented the dangerous state of the Austrian Empire by reason of its financial embarra.s.sments, and its differences between Vienna and Hungary. They admitted the difficulty of re-establis.h.i.+ng a Polish State, seeing that Russia, Prussia, and Austria are all interested in preventing it; but they thought that Russia might make herself amends to the Eastward for giving up part of her Polish possessions.

They said the Swedes would be more adverse than the Danes to a Union of Denmark with Sweden. They said the Finns are writhing under the Russian yoke, and emigrate in considerable numbers to Sweden. They think Russia paralysed for ten years to come by her war against England and France, by her internal changes, and her money embarra.s.sments. When the Prince asked Viscount Palmerston to sit down, it was for the purpose of urging in the strongest and most earnest manner that some British s.h.i.+ps of war, or even one single gunboat, if more could not be spared, should every year visit the Baltic, and make a cruise in that sea. He said that the British Flag was never seen there, although Great Britain has great interests, commercial and political, in that sea. That especially for Sweden it would be a great support if a British man-of-war were every year to show itself in Swedish waters. He said that our Navy know little or nothing of the Baltic, and when a war comes, as happened in the late war with Russia, our s.h.i.+ps are obliged, as it were, to feel their way about in the dark; that the Russians send s.h.i.+ps of war into British ports--why should not England send s.h.i.+ps of war into Russian ports? That we survey seas at the other side of the Globe, why should we not survey a sea so near to us as the Baltic; that as far as Sweden is concerned, British s.h.i.+ps would be most cordially received. I said that this should receive due consideration; and in answer to a question he said the best time for a Baltic cruise would be from the middle of June to the latter end of August.

They both thought the Emperor of the French extremely popular in France--but, of course, they only saw outward demonstrations. They are very anxious for the maintenance of the Anglo-French Alliance; and they think the Emperor obliged to keep a large Army and to build a strong Navy in order to please and satisfy the French Nation. Such is the summary of the impression made upon Viscount Palmerston by the answers and observations drawn out by him in his conversations with the King and the Prince; most of these things were said as above reported, some few of the above statements are perhaps inferences and conclusions drawn from indirect answers and remarks.

[Pageheading: SWEDEN AND DENMARK]

[Pageheading: FRANCE AND SWEDEN]

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston._

OSBORNE, _18th August 1861_.

The Queen is very much obliged to Lord Palmerston for his detailed account of his conversation with the King of Sweden, and sends both Memorandums back to him in accordance with his wishes, in the expectation of having them returned to her after they shall have been copied.

The King may have been embarra.s.sed by the presence of the Crown Prince of Prussia here at Osborne, and have on that account postponed speaking openly to Lord Palmerston. His desire to acquire Denmark and Finland is not unnatural, and would not be very dangerous; but the important part of the matter is, that the Emperor Napoleon has evidently tried to bribe him for his schemes by such expectations.

After having established a large kingdom, dependent upon him and possessing a fleet, in the South of Europe on his right flank, he evidently tries to establish by the same means a similar power on his left flank in the North. If then the Revolution of Poland and Hungary takes Germany also in the rear, he will be exactly in the all-powerful position which his Uncle held, and at which he himself aims, with that one difference: that, unlike his Uncle, who had to fight England all the time (who defended desperately her interests in Europe), he tries to effect his purposes in alliance with England, and uses for this end our own _free_ Press and in our own free country!

The Polish and Hungarian Revolutions (perhaps the Russian) and the a.s.sistance which may be (n.o.bly?) given to them by Sweden, can easily be made as popular in this country as the Italian has, and efforts to produce this result are fully visible already. The position and prospects of the Ally, when the Emperor shall have the whole Continent at his feet, and the command of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, will not be a very pleasant one. Moreover, the Ally will probably have irritated him and the French Nation all the time by abusing them, and by showing that, although we may have approved of her policy, we did not intend that France should reap any benefits from it. All this is probably not thought of by our journalists, but requires the serious attention of our statesmen.

Lord Palmerston will perhaps show this letter to Lord Russell when he sends him the copies of the Memoranda, which he will probably do.

[Pageheading: FROGMORE]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

OSBORNE, _20th August 1861_.

MY BELOVED UNCLE,--Before I thank you for your dear letter of the 14th, or at least before I answer it, I wish to tell you _how soothed_ I was by that visit to that _lovely_ peaceful _Mausoleum at Frogmore_.

We parted from our dear children and grandchildren with heavy hearts at seven on the morning of the 16th, for their visit, excepting the _blank_ which clouds over everything, has been most peaceful and satisfactory, and we have learnt to know and most highly appreciate the great _excellence_ of dear Fritz's character; n.o.ble, high-principled, so anxious to do what is right, and to improve in every way, and so sweet-tempered and affectionate--so, beyond everything, devoted to Vicky.

I thought much of poor, dear Aunt Julia on the 15th; _that loss_ was the _signal_ for my irreparable one!