The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume Iii Part 84

_Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster_ Sir GEORGE GREY.

_Chief Secretary for Ireland_ Mr (afterwards VISCOUNT) CARDWELL.

[Footnote 53: Lord Aberdeen wrote, in a letter printed in Parker's _Sir James Graham_, vol. ii. p. 388, that the wish of Lord Palmerston, expressed in a speech at Tiverton, "to see the Germans turned out of Italy by the war, has secured Gladstone ... notwithstanding the three articles of the _Quarterly_ and the thousand imprecations of late years."]

[Pageheading: MR BRIGHT]

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._

94 PICCADILLY, _2nd July 1859_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty....

Viscount Palmerston has heard from several persons that Mr Bright would be highly flattered by being made a Privy Councillor; would your Majesty object to his being so made if it should turn out that he wishes it? There have been instances of persons made Privy Councillors without office, and if Mr Bright could be led by such an honour to turn his thoughts and feelings into better channels such a change could not fail to be advantageous to your Majesty's service....

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _2nd July 1859_.

The Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter of to-day. She is sorry not to be able to give her a.s.sent to his proposal with regard to Mr Bright.[54] Privy Councillors have sometimes exceptionally been made without office, yet this has been as rewards, even in such cases, for services rendered to the State. It would be impossible to allege any service Mr Bright has rendered, and if the honour were looked upon as a reward for his systematic attacks upon the inst.i.tutions of the country, a very erroneous impression might be produced as to the feeling which the Queen or her Government entertain towards these inst.i.tutions. It is moreover very problematical whether such an honour conferred upon Mr Bright would, as suggested, wean him from his present line of policy, whilst, if he continued in it, he would only have obtained additional weight in the country by his propounding his views as one of the Queen's Privy Councillors.

[Footnote 54: In 1859, Lord Palmerston, in offering Mr Cobden a seat in the Cabinet, rejected the idea of accepting Mr Bright as a colleague, on the ground that his public speeches made it impossible. Mr Bright, later in life, was a welcome guest at Windsor, and the Queen became warmly attached to him as one of her Ministers.]

[Pageheading: PACIFICATION OF INDIA]

_Earl Canning to Queen Victoria._

CALCUTTA, _4th July 1859_.

Lord Canning presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs permission to offer to your Majesty his respectful thanks for your Majesty's most gracious letter of the 18th of May.

Lord Canning ventures to believe that he is well able to figure to himself the feelings with which your Majesty will have welcomed the termination of the Mutiny and Rebellion in India, and of the chief miseries which these have brought in their train. He hopes that your Majesty will not have thought that there has been remissness in not marking this happy event by an earlier public acknowledgment and thanksgiving in India, as has already been done in England.[55] The truth is, that although this termination has long been steadily and surely approaching, it is but just now that it can be said to be complete in the eyes of those who are near to the scene of action. It is only within the last three weeks that the exertions of our Troops on the Oudh and Nepaulese frontier, and in some other parts, have been remitted, and almost every Gazette has recounted engagements with the rebels, which, although they have invariably had the same issue, would scarcely have consisted with a declaration that peace and tranquillity were restored. Now, however, military operations have fairly ceased, and the rains and the climate, which would make a continuance of those operations much to be regretted, will do their work amongst the rebels who are still in arms in the Nepaul jungles more terribly than any human avengers.

Lord Canning has used every exertion and device to bring these wretched men to submission; but many--it is difficult to say how many, but certainly some few thousands--still hold out. With some of them the reason no doubt is that they belong to the most guilty Regiments, and to those which murdered their officers; but this cannot apply to all; and it is to be feared that the prevailing cause is the bad influence of their leaders--the Nana, Bala Rao, and the Begum;[56] or rather the Begum's infamous advisers. It is certain that all of these, believing their own position to be desperate, have spared no pains to persuade their followers that the Government is seeking to entrap them, and that, if they submit, their lives will be taken....

[Footnote 55: There had been a Public Thanksgiving in England on the 1st of May.]

[Footnote 56: Bala Rao was a brother of Nana Sahib, chief instigator of the Sepoy Mutiny. See _ante_, 4th July, 1857, note 24.]

[Pageheading: A MILITARY ENQUIRY]

_Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _5th July 1859_.

The Queen is much shocked to see that the Government last night moved for a Committee of the House of Commons to enquire into the Military Departments, without having previously communicated with the Queen on the subject. She is the more surprised at this, as Lord Palmerston told her, when she saw him on the formation of the present Government, and she expressed her anxiety on the subject, that there would be no more trouble about it, and he thought it would drop. The Queen expects that the names of those who it is proposed should compose the Committee, and the wording of it, will be submitted to her.

[Pageheading: CONSt.i.tUTIONAL QUESTION]

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._

PICCADILLY, _5th July 1859_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to state that the re-appointment of the Committee on the Organisation of the Military Departments was unavoidable. That Committee had been affirmed by the House of Commons and consented to by the late Government, and had begun its sittings; but when a Dissolution of Parliament was announced, it suspended its further sittings, with the understanding that it should be revived in the new Parliament; and to have departed from that understanding would have been impossible. That which Viscount Palmerston intended to convey in what he said to your Majesty on the subject was, that the evidence given by Lord Panmure might be deemed as having fully set aside the objection urged against the present organisation by persons unacquainted with the bearing upon it of the fundamental principles of the Const.i.tution, namely, that the Crown acts in regard to Military matters without having any official adviser responsible for its acts. Such a condition of things, if it could exist, would be at variance with the fundamental principles of the British Const.i.tution, and would be fraught with danger to the Crown, because then the Sovereign would be held personally answerable for administrative acts, and would be brought personally in conflict in possible cases with public opinion, a most dangerous condition for a Sovereign to be placed in.

The maxim of the British Const.i.tution is that the Sovereign can do no wrong, but that does not mean that no wrong can be done by Royal authority; it means that if wrong be done, the public servant who advised the act, and not the Sovereign, must be held answerable for the wrongdoing.

But the Ministers of the Crown for the time being are the persons who are const.i.tutionally held answerable for all administrative acts in the last resort, and that was the pith and substance of the evidence given by Lord Panmure. Those persons who want to make great changes in the existing arrangements were much vexed and disappointed by that evidence, and the attempt made yesterday to put off the Committee till next year on the ground that the evidence now to be taken would be one-sided only, and would tend to create erroneous impressions, was founded upon those feelings of disappointment.

Viscount Palmerston submits names of the persons whom Mr Sidney Herbert proposes to appoint on the Committee, and they seem to be well chosen.

_Lord John Russell to Queen Victoria._

PEMBROKE LODGE, _10th July 1859_.

(7 P.M.)

Lord John Russell presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He has just received from Lord Palmerston, who is here, the paper, a copy of which is enclosed.[57]

Lord John Russell has to add that Lord Palmerston and he are humbly of opinion that your Majesty should give to the Emperor of the French the moral support which is asked. It is clearly understood that if the Emperor of Austria declines to accept the propositions, Great Britain will still maintain her neutral position.

But it is probable that her moral support will put an end to the war, and your Majesty's advisers cannot venture to make themselves responsible for its continuance by refusing to counsel your Majesty to accept the proposal of France.

[Footnote 57: At the seat of war, a series of decisive French victories had culminated in the battle of Solferino, on Midsummer Day (see _ante_, Introductory Note to Chapter XXVIII).

But the French Emperor was beginning to think these successes too dearly purchased, at the expense of so many French lives, and, actuated either by this, or some similar motive, he attempted, on the 6th of July, to negotiate through the British Government with Austria. The attempt was a failure, but an armistice was signed on the 8th, and again the Emperor sought the moral support of England. The paper which Lord John Russell submitted was a rough memorandum of M. de Persigny's, proposing as a basis of negotiation the cession of Lombardy to Piedmont, the independence of Venetia, and the erection of an Italian Confederation.]