Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston

THE QUEEN'S OPINION

Balmoral, 11th September 1859.

Lord Palmerston has written (on the 8th) a long letter to the Queen, which, besides giving his private opinion on the politics of Italy, which were not disputed, purports to show that when a principle of policy had been adopted by the Cabinet and sanctioned by the Sovereign, the Foreign Secretary ought not to be impeded in carrying out the details, either by objections raised to them by the Sovereign, or by making them dependent on the meetings of Cabinets, difficult to obtain at this time of year. Now the question raised by the Queen was just the reverse. The principle adopted by the Cabinet and sanctioned by the Queen was: not to interfere by active advice with the peace to be made at Zurich; the Foreign Secretary had submitted a draft which had appeared to the Queen to be in contradiction to this principle, which, upon the Sovereign's objection, he withdrew; the Cabinet was summoned and rejected a similar draft submitted to them, and the Queen then complained that the very same advice should have been given by the Prime Minister in an indirect way to which the Sovereign and Cabinet could not agree openly. Lord Palmerston's letter was not communicated to the Queen until it had been alluded to in a public despatch, and Count Walewski had insinuated to our Ambassador that, rather than be a party to a line of conduct, which he would look upon as dishonourable for his master, he would resign office. What the Queen has asked for is: an intimation to the French Government that private communications like that of Lord Palmerston to M. de Persigny must not be looked upon as the official expression of the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, and that we disclaim ever having intended to induce the Emperor to break his engagements made at Villafranca, whatever they may have been. The Queen does not conceive that Lord Palmerston can object to this course, nor does he attempt to do so in his letter.

P.S.—Since writing the above the Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter of the 9th. As she has just written at length, she does not conceive that it would be necessary to make any further observations in reply, except to a distinct question put by him in the latter part of his letter, viz. what the Queen wishes to have "distinctly guarded against."

It is the danger and inconvenience of private communications with Foreign Ministers, without a distinct understanding that they are strictly private, and not to be treated as conveying the opinions of Her Majesty's Government, where the sanction of the Crown and adhesion of the Cabinet have not been obtained. Lord John Russell has now expressed this in a paragraph in one of his drafts to Lord Cowley, which he will send to Lord Palmerston.

As a proof of the necessity of such caution, the Queen, has only to refer to the public use made of Lord Palmerston's private letter to Count Persigny, and the use made to our prejudice by the Emperor Napoleon at the time of the armistice at Villafranca of a private communication with Count Persigny, which was represented to imply assent to certain conditions of peace by England, with a desire of pressing them on Austria, when no opinion had been expressed by the Government to justify such an inference.