Queen Victoria to Viscount Hardinge

Buckingham Palace, 21st April 1856.

The Queen has heard from Colonel Phipps that Lord Hardinge is most anxious for her sanction to the paper submitted yesterday, if even as merely a temporary measure, before the mail goes this evening, as all the shipping at Balaklava is waiting for it. She hopes Lord Hardinge will see how inconvenient and unpleasant it must be to the Queen to have important matters submitted at such short notice that they cannot even be discussed by her without detriment to the public service, and trusts that she may not again be placed in a similar position. She has now signed the paper, but only as a temporary measure, and upon the understanding that Lord Hardinge will submit to her, between this and the next mail, the arrangements which are now wanting.

She has also signed the proposal about Canada, but must express her conviction that General Le Marchant, as Civil Governor of the Colony, cannot possibly attend to the command of the Brigade, which ought to have a distinct Commander. There may be Artillery in Canada, but is it horsed? and in Batteries?

We are rapidly falling back into the old ways!

Footnote 25: Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant, 1803-1874, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from 1852 to 1857.