Volume Iii Part 108 (1/2)
_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_.