The Letters of Queen Victoria
Chapter 87 : _Queen Victoria to Sir Robert Peel._ _26th October 1841._ With respect to Serjeant Jack

_Queen Victoria to Sir Robert Peel._

_26th October 1841._

With respect to Serjeant Jackson, the Queen will not oppose his appointment, in consequence of the high character Sir Robert Peel gives him; but she cannot refrain from saying that she very much fears that the favourable effect which has. .h.i.therto been produced by the formation of so mild and conciliatory a Government in Ireland, may be endangered by this appointment, which the Queen would sincerely regret.

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _26th October 1841._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and returns your Majesty the letters of the King of the Belgians, with many thanks. It certainly is a very unfortunate thing that the Queen Christina was encouraged to fix her residence at Paris, and the suspicion arising, therefore, cannot but be very injurious both to the King of the French and to the French nation.

Lord Melbourne returns his warmest thanks for your Majesty's kind expressions. He felt the greatest pleasure at seeing your Majesty again and looking so well, and he hopes that his high spirits did not betray him into talking too much or too heedlessly, which he is conscious that they sometimes do.

The King Leopold, Lord Melbourne perceives, still hankers after Greece; but Crowns will not bear to be chopped and changed about in this manner. These new Kingdoms are not too firmly fixed as it is, and it will not do to add to the uncertainty by alteration....

[Pageheading: DISPUTE WITH UNITED STATES]

_Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria._

WHITEHALL, _28th October 1841._

... Sir Robert Peel humbly a.s.sures your Majesty that he fully partic.i.p.ates in the surprise which your Majesty so naturally expresses at the extraordinary intimation conveyed to Mr Fox[146] by the President of the United States.[147]

Immediately after reading Mr Fox's despatch upon that subject, Sir Robert Peel sought an interview with Lord Aberdeen. The measure contemplated by the President is a perfectly novel one, a measure of a hostile and unjustifiable character adopted with pacific intentions.

Sir Robert Peel does not comprehend the object of the President, and giving him credit for the desire to prevent the interruption of amicable relations with this country, Sir Robert Peel fears that the forcible detention of the British Minister, after the demand of pa.s.sports, will produce a different impression on the public mind, both here and in the United States, from that which the President must (if he be sincere) have antic.i.p.ated. It appears to Sir Robert Peel that the object which the President professes to have in view would be better answered by the immediate compliance with Mr Fox's demand for pa.s.sports, and the simultaneous despatch of a special mission to this country conveying whatever explanations or offers of reparation the President may have in contemplation.

Sir Robert Peel humbly a.s.sures your Majesty that he has advised such measures of preparation to be taken in respect to the amount of disposable naval force, and the position of it, as without bearing the character of menace or causing needless disquietude and alarm, may provide for an unfavourable issue of our present differences with the United States.

Sir Robert Peel fears that when the President ventured to make to Mr Fox the communication which he did make, he must have laboured under apprehension that M'Leod might be executed in spite of the efforts of the general Government of the United States to save his life.

[Footnote 146: British Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton.]

[Footnote 147: One Alexander M'Leod was tried at Utica on the charge of being implicated in the destruction of the _Caroline_ (an American vessel engaged in carrying arms to the Canadian rebels), in 1837, and in the death of Mr Durfee, an American. The vessel had been boarded by Canadian loyalists when lying in American waters, set on fire and sent over Niagara Falls, and in the affray Durfee was killed. M'Leod was apprehended on American territory, and hence arose the friction between the two countries. M'Leod was acquitted 12th October 1841.]

[Pageheading: PORTUGAL]

_Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _31st October 1841._

The Queen received yesterday evening Lord Aberdeen's letter with the accompanying despatches and draft. She certainly _is_ surprised at the strange and improper tone in which Lord Howard's[148] despatches are written, and can only attribute them to an over-eager and, she fully believes, mistaken feeling of the danger to which he believes the throne of the Queen to be exposed.

The Queen has carefully perused Lord Aberdeen's draft, which she highly approves, but wishes to suggest to Lord Aberdeen whether upon further consideration it might not perhaps be as well to _soften_ the words under which she has drawn a pencil line, as she fears they might irritate Lord Howard very much.

The Queen is induced to copy the following sentences from a letter she received from her cousin, the King of Portugal, a few days ago, and which it may be satisfactory to Lord Aberdeen to see:--

"_Je dois encore vous dire que nous avons toutes les raisons de nous louer de la maniere dont le Portugal est traite par votre Ministre des Affaires etrangeres, et nous ferons de notre cote notre possible pour prouver notre bonne volonte."_

[Footnote 148: Lord Howard de Walden, Minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon.]

[Pageheading: SECRETARIES OF STATE]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _1st November 1841._

... Now for His Royal Highness's questions....

How the power of Prime Ministry grew up into its present form it is difficult to trace precisely, as well as how it became attached, as it were, to the office of First Commissioner of the Treasury. But Lord Melbourne apprehends that Sir Robert Walpole was the first man in whose person this union of powers was decidedly established, and that its being so arose from the very great confidence which both George I. and George II. reposed in him, and from the difficulty which they had in transacting business, particularly George I., from their imperfect knowledge of the language of the country.

With respect to the Secretary of State, Lord Melbourne is not prepared from memory to state the dates at which the different arrangements of that office have taken place. There was originally but one officer, and at the present the three are but the heads of the different departments of one office. The first division was into two, and they were called the Secretary for the Northern and the Secretary for the Southern department. They drew a line across the world, and each transacted the business connected with the countries within his own portion of the globe. Another division then took place, and the Foreign affairs were confided to one Secretary of State, and the Home and Colonial affairs to the other; but the present arrangement was finally settled in the year 1793, when the junction was formed between Mr Pitt on the one hand, and those friends of Mr Fox who left him because they differed with him upon the French Revolution. The Home affairs were placed in the hands of one Secretary of State, the Foreign of another, and the Colonial and Military affairs of a third, and this arrangement has continued ever since.[149] The persons then appointed were the Duke of Portland,[150] Lord Grenville,[151] and Mr Dundas,[152] Home, Foreign, and Colonial Secretaries.

Writing from recollection, it is very possible that Lord Melbourne may be wrong in some of the dates which he has ventured to specify.[153]

[Footnote 149: A fourth Secretary of State was added at the time of the Crimean War, so as to separate Colonial and Military affairs, and a fifth after the Indian Mutiny to supersede the President of the Board of Control. _See_ Lord Melbourne's letter of 31st December 1837, _ante_, p. 100.

(Ch. VI, 'State Departments')]

[Footnote 150: Third Duke (1738-1809).]

[Footnote 151: William Wyndham, Lord Grenville (1759-1834).]

[Footnote 152: Henry Dundas (1742-1811), afterwards Lord Melville.]

[Footnote 153: See _post_, pp. 358, 359.

(Ch. X, 'The English Const.i.tution', et seq.)]

[Pageheading: THE ENGLISH CONSt.i.tUTION]