Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston.
CRACOW
Osborne, 14th December 1846.
The Queen returns the enclosed private letters.31 The view Lord Palmerston takes of the affair of Cracow appears to the Queen a very sound one, and she would much wish to see the plan of a conference realised against which Lord Ponsonby does not bring any very relevant reasons. Prince Metternich's plan of a declaration "that the case is to be considered an exceptional one and not to afford a precedent to other powers" is too absurd. The Prince very justly compared it to the case of a person giving another a box on the ear and declaring at the same time that he is to consider it as exceptional, and that it is in no way to afford him a precedent for returning it. The Queen hopes the Cabinet will well consider the question, and contrive to find means to prevent the evil consequences of the unjustifiable step against Cracow by speaking out in time, before Russia or France may have decided on acts of further infraction of the Treaty of Vienna. It seems quite clear that Russia was at the bottom of the measure relative to Cracow, and it is therefore but reasonable to expect that she has an ulterior object in view.
Footnote 31: The first ill fruits of the disruption of the entente between England and France were seen in the active co-operation of Russia, Prussia, and Austria to destroy Polish independence. See ante, [p. 72].
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
TO CHAPTER XVI
During the year 1847 the Parliament which had been elected in 1841 with a great Tory majority was dissolved, and, as a result, the position of the Whig Ministry was slightly improved; but they were still dependent on the support of Sir Robert Peel. A Factory Act limiting the labour of women and children to ten hours a day was passed. An autumn session was rendered necessary by an acute financial crisis, the Ministry having authorised the Bank of England to infringe the provisions of the recent Bank Charter Act, and as a consequence being compelled to ask Parliament for an indemnity. The knowledge of the Bank's authority to issue notes beyond the prescribed limits was of itself sufficient to allay the panic. The Church of England was convulsed by the promotion of Dr Hampden, whom Lord Melbourne had made Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, to the See of Hereford; his orthodoxy was impugned in a memorial presented by thirteen bishops to the Prime Minister, and an unsuccessful application was made to the Queen's Bench (the Court being divided in opinion) to compel the Primate to hear objections to Dr Hampden's consecration. The new House of Lords was used for the first time this year.