Volume Ii Part 113 (1/2)
[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._