Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston

THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

28th January 1856.

The Queen returns to Lord Palmerston the draft of the speech, which she thinks extremely well worded, and which she therefore trusts will be (with the exception of those passages marked) as little altered as possible. Lord John Russell used to say that as soon as a speech was discussed in the Cabinet, it was so much pruned and altered as to lose all its force. The Queen must own that she is much alarmed at hearing that the papers of the War Council were to be printed and circulated amongst the Cabinet, as she fears that the secrecy, which is so necessary, upon which the Emperor laid so much stress, will be very difficult to be maintained. The Emperor's opinion at least, the Queen hopes, will not be printed or generally circulated?

The Queen must again press for a very early decision on the subject. If this is allowed to drag, it will appear, particularly to the Emperor, as if we were not really in earnest, though we stickled so much for our additional conditions, which might lessen the hopes of peace. Of course the Government must not give any answer on this subject—should Parliament be so indiscreet as to ask what the result of the deliberations of the Council of War has been.