The Queen thanks Sir Robert for his letter of the 23rd. She thinks that Major Malcolm's going back to China the bearer of verbal instructions as well as written ones will greatly facilitate the matter and prevent misunderstandings, which at such a great distance are mostly fatal. The Queen joins in Sir Robert's opinion, that before coming to a final arrangement it will be most valuable to have Sir H. Pottinger's opinion upon your present message, and thinks it much the best that Sir H. should in the meantime be entrusted with the extraordinary full powers for concluding any provisional arrangements, as she believes that very great confidence may be placed in him. Lord Stanley's suggestions strike the Queen as very judicious and calculated to facilitate the future Government of Hong-Kong.
The Queen hopes to hear more from Sir Robert when she sees him here, which she hopes to do from Monday the 2nd to Wednesday the 4th.
Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria.
THE SCOTCH CHURCH
Drayton Manor, 26th December 1842.
Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and with reference to enquiries made by your Majesty when Sir Robert Peel was last at Windsor, on the subject of the Scotch Church and the proceedings of the last General Assembly, begs leave to acquaint your Majesty that the Moderator of the Assembly has recently addressed a letter to Sir Robert Peel, requiring an answer to the demands urged by the General Assembly in a document entitled a Protest and Declaration of Right.116
The demands of the General Assembly amount to a reversal by Law of the recent decisions of the Court of Session and of the House of Lords, and to a repeal of the Act of Queen Anne, which establishes the Right of Patronage in respect to Livings in the Church of Scotland.
That Act by no means gives any such absolute right of appointment to the Crown or other patrons of Livings, as exists in England. It enables those legally entitled to the patronage to present a clergyman to the Living, but the Church Courts have the power, on valid objections being made and duly sustained by the parishioners, to set aside the presentation of the patron, and to require from him a new nomination.
The Church, however, requires the absolute repeal of the Act of Anne.
An answer to the demands of the Church will now become requisite.