March 12th.—The Club. Good party: Lord Salisbury, Walpole, Tyndall, Hooker, Hewett, Lecky, Lyall, A. Russell, Layard, and self.
March 20th.—Meeting at Lord Carnarvon's about the bust of Sir C. Newton.
25th.—Breakfast at Sheen House with Comte and Comtesse de Paris, to meet Lefèvre-Pontalis and Bocher.
28th.—Lunched with Major Dawson at Woolwich and went over the Arsenal. Very interesting.
April 12th.—Meeting for Matthew Arnold's Memorial. 7,000 l. raised.
May 4th.—Dined at the Royal Academy dinner. Sat by Horsley, Tyndall, and Chitty.
From Sir Arthur Gordon
May 5th.—You may rely upon it that I am absolutely right as to the Russian Memorandum—Lord Malmesbury does not himself assert that he ever saw it, which, had it existed, he must have done when Foreign Secretary. I cannot, of course, expect you to attach the same weight that I do to what I may call the personal reasons which make me utterly incredulous of Lord Malmesbury's story; but there are other reasons for doubting it, some of which may have already occurred to you. One is the alleged form of the document, which is said to be signed by the Emperor, the Duke, my father, and Sir R. Peel. Lord Malmesbury prides himself on the knowledge of diplomatic forms and etiquettes derived from his grandfather's papers. He might have known that the signature of an engagement by a Sovereign (and such a Sovereign!) on the one side and three ministers of another Sovereign on the other (thereby putting them on species of equality) was an impossibility. Such a paper, if it existed, would be signed either by both Sovereigns or by the ministers of both. I think I may say with confidence that the Emperor Nicholas was a most unlikely man to perform such an act of condescension. And why should he? He had his confidential minister with him. Another, and I think fatal, objection is that neither my father nor Lord Clarendon were altogether absolute fools, and when, in answer to the Emperor's challenge, they published the secret memorandum which had till then been handed on privately from minister to minister, they knew what they were about, and would never have put it into the power of the Emperor to retort that that was not what he referred to, but to a paper which would not improve the cordiality of the Anglo-French alliance. Again, is it likely that, if the Emperor had entered into such an agreement, he would take the trouble to write another long memorandum, containing the 'substance' of his discussions with the English ministers? This is the memorandum which was sent in a private letter, which I possess, from Count Nesselrode to my father; which was handed from minister to minister, and which was published in 1854. The original draft, Count Nesselrode said, was in the Emperor's own hand. I have another little bit of evidence which I think also goes to prove that no such agreement was entered into in 1844, as Lord Malmesbury supposes. In 1845 Count Nesselrode visited England. My father, writing to the Queen, gives an account of his conversations with Nesselrode, and says: 'His language very much resembled that held by the Emperor; and although he made no specific proposals, his declarations of support, in case of necessity, were more unequivocal.' (The italics are mine.) Could he have written this if he had already, some months before, signed an agreement with the Emperor, which was both unequivocal and specific?
From the Comte de Paris
Sheen House, 7 mai.