Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
PRUSSIA AND GERMANY
Osborne, 29th August 1848.
My dearest Uncle,—Most warmly do I thank you for your very kind and dear letter of the 26th, with so many good wishes for that dearest of days. It is indeed to me one of eternal thankfulness, for a purer, more perfect being than my beloved Albert the Creator could not have sent into this troubled world. I feel that I could not exist without him, and that I should sink under the troubles and annoyances and dégoûts of my very difficult position, were it not for his assistance, protection, guidance, and comfort. Truly do I thank you for your great share in bringing about our marriage.
Stockmar I do not quite understand, and I cannot believe that he really wishes to ruin all the smaller States, though his principal object is that unity which I fear he will not obtain.
I do not either at all agree in his wish that Prussia should take the lead; his love for Prussia is to me incomprehensible, for it is the country of all others which the rest of Germany dislikes. Stockmar cannot be my good old friend if he has such notions of injustice as I hear attributed to him. But whatever they may be, I do not believe the Ausführung to be possible.
I have great hopes of soon hearing of something decided about the fortunes of the poor French family. You will have seen how nobly and courageously good Joinville and Aumale behaved on the occasion of the burning of that emigrant ship off Liverpool.39 It will do them great good. I must now conclude. Ever your devoted Niece,
Victoria R.
Footnote 39: One hundred and seventy-eight persons perished in the burning of the Ocean Monarch; the French Princes were on board a Brazilian steam frigate, which saved one hundred and fifty-six lives.