Queen Victoria to the Earl of Derby

Osborne, 22nd May 1859.

In answer to Lord Derby's letter of yesterday referring to the importance of concerting with Russia the best modes of preventing the extension of the war, the Queen wishes merely to observe: That Russia has acknowledged her desire to see the Austrians defeated, and her indifference to the maintenance of the Treaties of 1815; France wages war to drive the Austrians out of Italy, wresting from them the Italian provinces secured to them by those treaties; and that the Queen has declared from the Throne her adhesion to these treaties to which Parliament unanimously responded. France and Russia may therefore have an interest, and indeed must have one, in not being disturbed in any way in the prosecution of their Italian scheme. England can have no such interest. If France prove successful, the territorial arrangements of Europe, in which England has found safety, and which she helped to establish in order to obtain safety against France after a war of twenty years' duration, will be subverted, and she herself may some day (perhaps soon) have her own safety imperilled. The Saxon provinces of Prussia will be in much greater danger when France shall have destroyed Austria in Italy and ruined her at home, than while the latter remains a powerful member of the German Confederation. What the Queen is naturally anxious to guard against is our being drawn by degrees into playing the game of those who have produced the present disturbance, and whose ulterior views are very naturally and very wisely by them concealed from us. The Queen is glad to hear that the telegram in question was not sent, having been alarmed by its being marked as having been despatched "at noon" on the 20th. The Queen wishes Lord Derby to show this letter to Lord Malmesbury.