Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston

Osborne, 30th May 1861.

The Queen returns these papers. She thinks it of great importance that we should be strong in Canada, and thinks an increase in Artillery as important as the sending of two more battalions, as that Arm cannot be supplied at all by the Colony. The Naval forces would, however, require strengthening even more. It is less likely that the remnant of the United States could send expeditions by land to the North while quarrelling with the South, than that they should commit acts of violence at sea.