STOCKMAR AND MELBOURNE
25th October 1841.
... I told [Lord Melbourne] that, as I read the English Constitution, it meant to assign to the Sovereign in his functions a deliberative part—that I was not sure the Queen had the means within herself to execute this deliberative part properly, but I was sure that the only way for her to execute her functions at all was to be strictly honest to those men who at the time being were her Ministers. That it was chiefly on this account that I had been so very sorry to have found now, on my return from the Continent, that on the change of the Ministry a capital opportunity to read a great Constitutional maxim to the Queen had not only been lost by Lord Melbourne, but that he had himself turned an instrument for working great good into an instrument which must produce mischief and danger. That I was afraid that, from what Lord Melbourne had been so weak as to have allowed himself to be driven into, against his own and better conviction, the Queen must have received a most pernicious bias, which on any future occasion would make her inclined to act in a similar position similarly to that what she does now, being convinced that what she does now must be right on all future occasions, or else Lord Melbourne would not have sanctioned it. Upon this, Lord Melbourne endeavoured to palliate, to represent the danger, which would arise from his secret correspondence with the Queen as very little, to adduce precedents from history, and to screen his present conduct behind what he imagined Lord Bute's conduct had been under George III.145 I listened patiently, and replied in the end: All this might be mighty fine and quite calculated to lay a flattering unction on his own soul, or it might suffice to tranquillize the minds of the Prince and Anson, but that I was too old to find the slightest argument in what I had just now heard, nor could it in any way allay my apprehension. I began then to dissect all that he had produced for his excusation, and showed him—as I thought clearly, and as he admitted convincingly—that it would be impossible to carry on this secret commerce with the Sovereign for any length of time without exposing the Queen's character and creating mighty embarrassments in the quiet and regular working of a Constitutional machine.
STOCKMAR'S ADVICE
My representations seemed to make a very deep impression, and Lord Melbourne became visibly nervous, perplexed, and distressed. After he had recovered a little I said, "I never was inclined to obtrude advice; but if you don't dislike to hear my opinion, I am prepared to give it to you." He said, "What is it?" I said, "You allow the Queen's confinement to pass over quietly, and you wait till her perfect recovery of it. As soon as this period has arrived, you state of your own accord to Her Majesty that this secret and confidential correspondence with her must cease; that you gave in to it, much against your feelings, and with a decided notion of its impropriety and danger, and merely out of a sincere solicitude to calm Her Majesty's mind in a critical time, and to prevent the ill effects which great and mental agitation might have produced on her health. That this part of your purpose now being most happily achieved, you thought yourself in duty bound to advise Her Majesty to cease all her communications to you on political subjects, as you felt it wrong within yourself to receive them, and to return your political advice and opinions on such matters; that painful as such a step must be to your feelings, which to the last moment of your life will remain those of the most loyal attachment and devotion to the Queen's person, it is dictated to you by a deep sense of what you owe to the country, to your Sovereign, and to yourself."
Footnote 145: For some time after the accession of George III., Bute, though neither in the Cabinet nor in Parliament, was virtually Prime Minister, but he became Secretary of State on 25th March 1761. George II. had disliked him, but he was generally believed to have exercised an undue influence over the consort of Prince Frederic of Wales, mother of George III.
Queen Victoria to Sir Robert Peel.
26th October 1841.
With respect to Serjeant Jackson, the Queen will not oppose his appointment, in consequence of the high character Sir Robert Peel gives him; but she cannot refrain from saying that she very much fears that the favourable effect which has hitherto been produced by the formation of so mild and conciliatory a Government in Ireland, may be endangered by this appointment, which the Queen would sincerely regret.