Saturday, 15th May 1841.

"Lord Melbourne came to me at twenty minutes past one, and we talked about this question of dissolution. 'We shall have a long debate upon it this morning at the Cabinet,' Lord Melbourne said. 'The worst thing is, that if we carry the Sugar Duties, we must dissolve. If we were to dissolve,' he continued, 'and were to have the parties equal as they are now, it would be very bad; if we were to have a majority, it would be a great thing; but if we were to have a minority it would be still worse.... We know that Charles I. and Charles II., and even Cromwell, appealed to the country, and had a Parliament returned into their very teeth' (so strong an Opposition), 'and that produced deposition, and convulsion, and bloodshed and death; but since then the Crown has always had a majority returned in favour of it. Even Queen Anne,' he continued, 'who removed Marlborough in the midst of his most glorious victories and dissolved Parliament, had an immense majority, though her measures were miserable; William IV.,' he said, 'even though he had a majority against him which prevented him from keeping his Ministers, had a much stronger feeling for him in that Parliament, than he ever had before. But I am afraid,' he added, 'that for the first time the Crown would have an Opposition returned smack against it; and that would be an affront to which I am very unwilling to expose the Crown.' This is very true."

The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria.

KING LEOPOLD'S SYMPATHY

Tuileries, 14th May 1841.

My dearest Victoria,—I am deeply grateful for your kind letter, which reached me this morning. Letters from hence ought not to be longer on their way than, at the longest, forty hours; forty-eight is the maximum. I fear that they are delayed at the Foreign Office; here it cannot be, as for instance these lines go this evening.

I can easily understand that the present crisis must have something very painful for you, and you will do well for your health and comfort to try to take it as philosophically as possible; it is a part of the Constitutional system which is for the Sovereign very hard to get over.

Nous savons tous des paroles sur cet air, as the French say. I was convinced that Lord Melbourne's right and good feeling would make him pause before he proposed to you a dissolution. A general election in England, when great passions must be roused or created to render it efficacious for one party or another, is a dangerous experiment, always calculated to shake the foundations on which have hitherto reposed the great elements of the political power of the country. Albert will be a great comfort to you, and to hear it from yourself has given me the sincerest delight. His judgment is good, and he is mild and safe in his opinions; they deserve your serious attention; young as he is, I have really often been quite surprised how quick and correct his judgment is....

Lord John Russell to Queen Victoria.

TORY DISSENSIONS