Footnote 5: She made her début in London on the 4th of May in Roberto il Diavolo. The Queen had heard her sing previously at Stolzenfels. In May 1849, after singing for two years to enthusiastic audiences, she retired from the stage, and made extended concert tours in Europe and America.

The Duke of Wellington to Queen Victoria.

THE WELLINGTON STATUE

London, 12th July 1847.
(Five in the afternoon.)

Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He submits to your Majesty the expression of his sorrow and shame that your Majesty should be troubled for a moment by anything so insignificant as a statue of himself.

When he first heard of the intention to remove the statue from the pedestal on which it had been placed, he was apprehensive that the measure might be misconstrued and misrepresented in this country as well as abroad.

That feeling was increased when the probable existence of such misconstruction was adverted to in one of the printed papers circulated by the Committee for the erection of the statue; and still farther when the removal became the subject of repeated discussions in Parliament. His daily experience of your Majesty's gracious reception of his endeavours to serve your Majesty; and the events of every day, and the repeated marks which he received of your Majesty's consideration and favour proved clearly, as the Duke stated in his letter to Lord John Russell, that there was no foundation for the misconstruction of the intended act—which undoubtedly existed. The apprehension of such misconstruction had from the first moment created an anxious wish in the mind of the Duke that the removal should be so regulated and should be attended by such circumstances as would tend to relieve the transaction from the erroneous but inconvenient impression which had been created.

The Duke apprehended that he might find it impossible to perform the duties with which he had been entrusted, and therefore, when Lord John Russell wrote to him, he deprecated the measure in contemplation; and he rejoices sincerely that your Majesty has been most graciously pleased to countermand the order for the removal of the statue.

All of which is most humbly submitted to your Majesty by your Majesty's most dutiful Subject and most devoted Servant,

Wellington.6