The Earl of Derby to Queen Victoria

LORD CLARENDON

St James' Square, 31st January 1855.

(9:30 p.m.)

Lord Derby, with his humble duty, hastens to submit to your Majesty the answer which he has this moment received from Viscount Palmerston to the communication which he made to him this morning by your Majesty's command. Lord Derby has not yet received from Mr Sidney Herbert and Mr Gladstone the answers referred to in Lord Palmerston's letter; but, from the tenor of the latter, he fears there can be no doubt as to their purport. With respect to Lord Clarendon, Lord Derby is fully sensible of the advantage which might accrue to your Majesty's service from the continuance in office of a Minister of great ability, who is personally cognizant of all the intricate negotiations and correspondence which have taken place for the last two years; and neither personally nor politically would he anticipate on the part of his friends, certainly not on his own part, any difficulty under existing circumstances, in co-operating with Lord Clarendon; but the present political relations between Lord Clarendon and Lord Derby's friends are such that, except upon a special injunction from your Majesty, and under your Majesty's immediate sanction, he would not be justified in making any overtures in that direction. Should Lord Derby receive any communication from Mr Gladstone or Mr. Sidney Herbert before morning, he will send it down to your Majesty by the earliest opportunity in the morning. Lord Derby trusts that your Majesty will forgive the haste in which he writes, having actually, at the moment of receiving Lord Palmerston's answer, written a letter to say that he could not longer detain your Majesty's messenger. Lord Derby will take no farther step until he shall have been honoured by your Majesty's farther commands.

The above is humbly submitted by your Majesty's most dutiful Servant and Subject,

Derby.

Footnote 20: Although opposed to the ordinary procedure of party government, there were recent precedents for such overtures being made. When the Whigs displaced Peel in 1846, Lord John Russell attempted to include three of the outgoing Ministers in his Cabinet, and on the formation of the Coalition Ministry, negotiations were on foot to retain Lord St. Leonards on the woolsack.