It will, I am sure, be most pleasing to the Queen to receive, from the expressions contained in the address, a fresh assurance of the loyal interest taken by her people in all that concerns her happiness.
I most willingly attend here this day to assist at a ceremony which the inhabitants of Manchester may well witness with pride, as its object is to inaugurate an Exhibition collected by the exertion of their enterprise and public spirit, and intended, not for the amusement and gratification of the neighbourhood alone, but for the instruction and improvement of the nation at large.
You justly allude in terms of gratitude to that comprehensive and liberal spirit which has adorned the walls of this building with the choicest specimens of art from so many private galleries of the kingdom. It added much to the pleasure with which the Queen and myself had complied with the application for works of art belonging to us when we found this example so generally followed by the possessors of treasures which are, in general, so reluctantly intrusted by their owners to the care of others.
The Queen will, I am confident, be glad again to visit Manchester, not only to mark by her presence her approval of the object and successful execution of this great undertaking which we have this day to celebrate, but from a recollection of the enthusiastic loyalty exhibited when she had formerly an opportunity of visiting this great centre of industry.
[Lord Overstone having read the Address of the General Council,
His Royal Highness replied as follows—]
My Lord and Gentlemen,—
You are very kind in thinking at this moment of the bereavement which has befallen the Queen and her family.
In the Duchess of Gloucester we have all lost, not only the last of the children of that good King who occupied the throne during sixty years, and carried this country fearlessly and successfully through the most momentous struggles of its history, and thus the last personal link with those times, but also a lady whose virtues and qualities of the heart had commanded the respect and love of all who knew her.
If I have thought it my duty to attend here to-day, although her mortal remains have not yet been carried to their last place of rest, my decision has been rendered easy by the conviction that, could her own opinions and wishes have been known, she would, with that sense of duty and patriotic feeling which so much distinguished her and the generation to which she belonged, have been anxious that I should not on her account, or from private feelings, disturb an arrangement intended for the public good.