Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria

Piccadilly, 18th June 1861.

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty....

Viscount Palmerston submits a note from Garter King at Arms, by which your Majesty will see that there are now three Garters vacant; and Viscount Palmerston would beg to suggest for your Majesty's consideration that those Garters might appropriately be conferred upon Lord Canning for his great services in India, upon Lord John Russell for his long political services under your Majesty, and upon the Duke of Somerset, senior Duke after the Duke of Norfolk, and the able administrator of an important branch of your Majesty's service.

Viscount Palmerston is not aware whether by the regulations of the Order the Garter could be sent out to Lord Canning in India. If that were possible, it might have the double advantage of strengthening his hands during the remainder of his stay, by affording so public a mark of your Majesty's approval; and moreover of making sure that Lord Canning should receive this mark of your Majesty's royal favour, while the Government is in the hands of an administration similar to that at whose recommendation he was sent out, which perhaps might be more agreeable to his feelings than running the chance, always possible, though Viscount Palmerston hopes it may not be probable, that political combinations might, before his return in May or June 1862, have produced administrative changes.

Footnote 17: The Duke was First Lord of the Admiralty. All the three Peers mentioned received the Garter early in 1862.