Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria

Piccadilly, 22nd September 1855.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs, in the first place, to be allowed to offer to your Majesty his most sincere congratulations upon the prospective arrangement which His Royal Highness the Prince Albert announced in his letter to Lord Clarendon, but which, for obvious reasons, should be left to public conjecture for the present. Viscount Palmerston trusts that the event, when, it takes place, will contribute as much to the happiness of those more immediately concerned, and to the comfort of your Majesty and of the Royal Family, as it undoubtedly will to the interests of the two countries, and of Europe in general....

Viscount Palmerston begs to state that the Professorship of Greek at the University of Oxford, which was held by the late Dean of Christchurch, is still vacant, Viscount Palmerston having doubts as to the best person to be appointed. The present Dean of Christchurch admitted that the Professorship ought to be separated from the Deanery; he has now recommended for the Professorship the Rev. B. Jowett, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, who is an eminent Greek scholar and won the Hertford Scholarship; and Viscount Palmerston submits, for your Majesty's gracious approval, that Mr Jowett may be appointed.

Footnote 86: The Very Rev. Thomas Gaisford, D.D., who was appointed Regius Professor of Greek in 1811, and Dean of Christchurch in 1831.