Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston.
SIR HENRY BULWER
Buckingham Palace, 15th June 1848.
The Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter explaining his views as to the reparation we may be entitled to receive from the Spanish Government. She considers them as quite fair, but does not wish to have Sir H. Bulwer again as her Minister at Madrid, even if it should be necessary that he should repair there in order to be received by the Queen of Spain. It would not be consulting the permanent interests of this country to entrust that mission again to Sir H. Bulwer, after all that has passed. When the Queen considers the position we had in Spain, and what it ought to have been after the constitution of the French Republic when we had no rival to fight and ought to have enjoyed the entire confidence and friendship of Spain, and compares this to the state into which our relations with that country have been brought, she cannot help being struck how much matters must have been mismanaged.
Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell.
Buckingham Palace, 16th June 1848.
The Queen sends the enclosed draft,27 and asks whether this note is what Lord John directed Lord Palmerston to send to Lisbon as a caution to Sir H. Seymour not to mix himself up with party intrigues to upset a particular Ministry?28 ...
Footnote 27: The draft ran:—"As it is evident that the Queen and the Government of Portugal will listen to no advice except such that agrees with their own wishes, I have to instruct you to abstain in future from giving any longer any advice to them on political matters, taking care to explain both to the Queen and the Government your reasons for doing so. You will, however, at the same time positively declare to the Portuguese Government that if by the course of policy they are pursuing they should run into any difficulty, they must clearly understand that they will not have to expect any assistance from England."
Footnote 28: Lord John Russell replied that he would write immediately to Lord Palmerston respecting Portuguese affairs. He added that he did not approve of the proposed draft.