The Letters of Queen Victoria
Chapter 285 : She concludes with every wish for his welfare and success.[Footnote 96: Considerable d

She concludes with every wish for his welfare and success.

[Footnote 96: Considerable difficulty had been found in appointing a successor to General Simpson, who had resigned a task which he found overtaxed his powers. Sir William Codrington was junior to three other Generals, who might have felt aggrieved by being pa.s.sed over. The sagacity of the Prince found a way out of the difficulty by appointing two of the three to the commands of the two _corps d'armee_ into which the Army had, at his instance, been subdivided. See _ante._ 22nd November, 1855, note 92.]

[Pageheading: VISIT OF KING OF SARDINIA]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _5th December 1855_.

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--I must make many excuses for not writing to you yesterday, to thank you for your kind letter of the 30th, as on Friday and Sat.u.r.day my time was entirely taken up with my _Royal_ brother, the King of Sardinia,[97] and I had to make up for loss of time these last days. He leaves us to-morrow at an extraordinary hour--four o'clock in the morning (which you did once or twice)--wis.h.i.+ng to be at Compiegne to-morrow night, and at Turin on Tuesday. He is _eine ganz besondere, abenteuerliche Erscheinung_, startling in the extreme in appearance and manner when you _first_ see him, but, just as Aumale says, _il faut l'aimer quand on le connait bien_. He is so frank, open, just, straightforward, liberal and tolerant, with much sound good sense. He never breaks his word, and you may rely on him, but wild and extravagant, courting adventures and dangers, and with a very strange, short, rough manner, an exaggeration of that short manner of speaking which his poor brother had. He is shy in society, which makes him still more brusque, and he does not know (never having been out of his own country or even out in Society) what to say to the number of people who are presented to him here, and which is, I know from experience, a most odious thing. He is truly attached to the Orleans family, particularly to Aumale, and will be a friend and adviser to them. To-day he will be invested with the Order of the Garter. He is more like a Knight or King of the Middle Ages than anything one knows nowadays.

On Monday we go to Osborne till the 21st.

One word about Vicky. I must say that she has a quick discernment of character, and I have never seen her take _any_ predilection for a person which was _not motive_ by personal amiability, goodness, or distinction of some kind or other. You need be under no apprehension whatever on this subject; and she has, moreover, great tact and _esprit de conduite_. It is quite extraordinary how popular she is in Society--and again now, all these Foreigners are so struck with her sense and _conversation_ for her age.

Hoping soon to hear from you again, and wis.h.i.+ng that naughty Stockmar may yet be brought to come, believe me ever your devoted Niece,

VICTORIA R.

[Footnote 97: King Victor Emmanuel was received with great cordiality by the English people, grateful for his co-operation and for the gallantry of his soldiers at the Tchernaya. Count Cavour accompanied him, and drafted the reply read by the King at Guildhall to the address of the Corporation.]

[Pageheading: GARTER FEES]

_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._

DOWNING STREET, _11th December 1855_.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty and submits a letter which he received a few days ago from the Duke of Newcastle declining the Garter. Viscount Palmerston on his return from Woburn, where he was for two days, saw the Duke of Newcastle, but found that the enclosed letter expressed the intention which he had formed. Viscount Palmerston would propose to your Majesty the Earl of Fortescue as a deserving object of your Majesty's gracious favour; Lord Fortescue held the high office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and is a person highly and universally respected.[98]

Viscount Palmerston cannot refrain from saying on this occasion that he is not without a misgiving that the high amount of fees which he understands is paid by persons who are made Knights of the Garter may have some effect in rendering those whose incomes are not very large less anxious than they would otherwise be to receive this distinction; and he cannot but think that it is unseemly in general that persons upon whom your Majesty may be disposed to confer dignities and honours, either as a mark of your Majesty's favour or as a reward for their public services, should on that account be subject to a heavy pecuniary fine; and he intends to collect information with a view to consider whether all such fees might not be abolished, the officers to whom they are now paid receiving compensation in the shape of adequate fixed salary.[99] ...

[Footnote 98: Earl Fortescue received the Garter; he died in 1861.]

[Footnote 99: This reform was effected in 1905.]

_Queen Victoria to Lord Panmure._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _22nd December 1855_.

The Queen has received Lord Panmure's answer to her letter from Osborne, and is glad to see from it that he is quite agreed with the Queen on the subject of the Land Transport Corps. She would _most strongly_ urge Lord Panmure to give at once _carte blanche_ to Sir W. Codrington to organise it as he thinks best, and to make him personally responsible for it. We have only eight weeks left to the beginning of spring; a few references home and their answers would consume the whole of that time! The Army has now to carry their huts on their backs up to the Camp; if it had been fighting, it would have perished for want of them, like the last winter. If each Division, Brigade, and Battalion has not got within itself what it requires for its daily existence in the field, a movement will be quite impossible.

The Queen approves the intended increase of Artillery and Sappers and Miners; but hopes that these will be taken from the _nominal_ and _not_ the existing strength of the Army.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

TO CHAPTER XXV

After two years' duration, the Crimean War was terminated in March 1856, at a Conference of the Powers a.s.sembled at Paris, by a treaty the princ.i.p.al terms of which provided for the integrity of Turkey, and her due partic.i.p.ation in the public law and system of Europe, the neutralisation of the Black Sea, and the opening of its waters to commerce (with the interdiction, except in a limited degree, of the flag of war of any nation, and of the erection by either Russia or Turkey of a.r.s.enals), free navigation of the Danube, cession of a portion of Bessarabia by Russia, and the reciprocal evacuation of invaded territories; the Princ.i.p.alities to be continued in their existing privileges under the suzerainty of the Porte and a guarantee of the Contracting Powers. No European protectorate was to be established over the Sultan's Christian subjects. Certain general principles of International Law were also agreed upon. In the course of the summer, the Guards made a public re-entry into London; and the Crimea was finally evacuated; great reviews of the returned troops taking place at Aldershot. The thanks of Parliament were accorded to the soldiers and sailors engaged, and peace-rejoicings celebrated on a great scale.

The Commissioners who had been sent out, nearly a year before, to the Crimea, to investigate the causes of the breakdown in various military departments, presented a Report, censuring several high officials; a Military Commission was accordingly appointed to investigate the Report, and after sitting for some months at Chelsea, completely exonerated the officials in question.

The Government having resolved to strengthen the administration of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, Letters Patent were made out purporting to create Sir James Parke, an ex-Judge, a Baron for his life, under the t.i.tle of Lord Wensleydale. After frequent and protracted debates on this question, the Peers decided that such a patent conferred no right to sit and vote in Parliament. The Government gave up the contest by creating Sir James (who had no son) a hereditary peer.

The Czar Alexander was crowned at Moscow in September with great ceremonial, the Sultan being duly represented, while Lord Granville was present as special Amba.s.sador for the Queen. The discovery of the cruelty with which political offenders were being treated in Neapolitan prisons led to the rupture of diplomatic relations between England in union with France on the one hand, and King Ferdinand on the other; while a dispute as to the enlistment of recruits for the English Army in the United States led to the dismissal of the British Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, and to temporary friction between the two countries.

The provisions of the Treaty of Paris were not carried out without considerable procrastination on the part of Russia, which, by its method of evacuating Kars and surrendering Ismail and Reni, and by laying claim to Serpent's Island at the mouth of the Danube, compelled England to send a fleet to the Black Sea, to enforce strict observance of the Treaty. By the end of the year the matter was arranged, though in the meantime the possibility of Great Britain being represented at the Czar's coronation had been imperilled.

The abuses which had long existed in the Government of Oudh induced the Governor-General of India, early in the year, to issue a proclamation placing that kingdom permanently under the authority of the British Crown. Lord Dalhousie at this time retired from the office (which he had held for eight years) of Governor-General, and was succeeded by Lord Canning. It fell to the lot of the latter to announce the commencement of hostilities between this country and Persia, on the ground that the latter was endeavouring, in defiance of Treaties, to subvert the independence of Herat. The Shah had laid siege to the town, when, in December, the English fleet, under Admiral Sir Henry Leeke, attacked and captured Bus.h.i.+re on the Persian Gulf.

Soon afterwards, Sir James Outram arrived on the scene from Bombay, and a.s.sumed the command.

CHAPTER XXV

1856

_Queen Victoria to Lord Panmure._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _5th January 1856_.

The Queen returns the drawings for the "Victoria Cross." She has marked the one she approves with an X; she thinks, however, that it might be a trifle smaller. The motto would be better "For Valour" than "For the Brave," as this would lead to the inference that only those are deemed brave who have got the Victoria Cross.

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Clarendon._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _7th January 1856_.

The Queen has received Lord Clarendon's letter, and in answer to his question expresses her opinion that Lord Cowley's presence at the Council of War will be absolutely necessary.[1] She believes Lord Clarendon to be agreed with her, that the value of a plan of military campaign is entirely dependent upon the _general policy_ which the Government intends to pursue. As none of our Commissioners at the Council of War are in the least acquainted with the latter, they might be drawn into plans which would not at all agree with it. Lord Cowley would take that part of the question into his own hands, in which it will be quite safe. The Queen thinks that it is of secondary importance whether Count Walewski attends or not, but that the Emperor cannot have the same need of his presence which we have of that of our Amba.s.sador.

[Footnote 1: A satisfactory and speedy conclusion of hostilities appearing at this time far from probable, a Council of War to settle the course of operations was, at the Emperor's suggestion, summoned to meet at Paris. Lord Cowley, Count Walewski, Prince Jerome Bonaparte, and others, were present, besides Naval and Military representatives of the Allies, among whom was the Duke of Cambridge.]