Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston

THE QUEEN AND HER MINISTERS

Windsor Castle, 10th February 1860.

The Queen sends a letter to Lord Palmerston which she has received yesterday evening from Lord John Russell. She is induced to do so from a feeling that it is to Lord Palmerston, as head of the Government, that she has to look, when she may have reason to take exception to the tone of communications she may receive from members of his Cabinet. Lord Palmerston will not fail to perceive that the enclosed is not the kind of communication which the Foreign Secretary ought to make, when asked by his Sovereign to explain the views of the Cabinet upon a question so important and momentous as the annexation of Savoy to France, and the steps which they propose to take with regard to it. She need not remind Lord Palmerston that in her letter communicated to the Cabinet she had given no opinion whatever upon Italian liberation from a foreign yoke, nor need she protest against a covert insinuation, such as is contained in Lord John's letter, that she is no well-wisher of mankind and indifferent to its freedom and happiness. But she must refer to the constitutional position of her Ministers towards herself. They are responsible for the advice they gave her, but they are bound fully, respectfully, and openly to place before her the grounds and reasons upon which their advice may be founded, to enable her to judge whether she can give her assent to that advice or not. The Government must come to a standstill if the Minister meets a demand for explanation with an answer like the following: "I was asked by the Cabinet to give an answer, but as I do not agree with you, I think it useless to explain my views."

The Queen must demand that respect which is due from a Minister to his Sovereign. As the Queen must consider the enclosed letter as deficient in it, she thinks Lord John Russell might probably wish to reconsider it, and asks Lord Palmerston to return it to him with that view.

That Lord Palmerston may be acquainted with the course the correspondence has taken, the Queen encloses the two preceding letters.

Footnote 8: The letter ran:—"Lord John Russell unfortunately does not partake your Majesty's opinions in regard to Italy, and he is unwilling to obtrude on your Majesty unnecessary statements of his views.... Whatever may be the consequence, the liberation of the Italian people from a foreign yoke is, in the eyes of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, an increase of freedom and happiness at which as well-wishers to mankind they cannot but rejoice."