The Queen can as little approve of the introduction of Lynch Law in this country as of the violent vituperations with which Lord Palmerston accuses and condemns public men in other countries, acting in most difficult circumstances and under heavy responsibility, without having the means of obtaining correct information or of sifting evidence.
Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston.
Osborne, 16th October 1850.
The Queen is glad to hear from Lord Palmerston that he has given no countenance to the French and Russian proposal at the suggestion of Denmark, that England, France, and Russia should, after having signed the Protocol in favour of Denmark, now go further and send their armies to aid her in her contest with Holstein.42 The Queen does not expect any good result from Lord Palmerston's counter proposal to urge Prussia and Austria to compel the Holsteiners to lay down their arms. The mediating power ought rather to make Denmark feel that it requires more than a cessation of hostilities, a plan of reconciliation, and a solution of the questions in dispute, before she can hope permanently to establish peace. The mediating power itself, however, should strive to arrive at some opinion on the matter in dispute, based, not on its own supposed interests, as the Protocol is, but on an anxious, careful, and impartial investigation of the rights and pretensions of the disputing parties; and if it finds it impossible to arrive at such an opinion, to fix upon some impartial tribunal capable of doing so, to which the dispute could be submitted for decision. Common principles of morality would point out such a course, and what is morally right only can be politically wise.
Footnote 42: A strenuous attempt was being made by the Danish Government to bring pressure to bear on Austria and Prussia, to put down the nationalist movement in the Duchies, either by active intervention, or by reassembling the Conference which had negotiated the Treaty of Berlin. Lord Palmerston discountenanced both alternatives, but wrote to the Queen that he and the representatives of France, Russia, and Denmark thought that Austria and Prussia should be urged to take all feasible steps to put an end to the hostilities.
Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
DEATH OF QUEEN LOUISE
Osborne, 18th October 1850.
My dearest Uncle,—This was the day I always and for so many years wrote to her, to our adored Louise, and I now write to you, to thank you for that heart-breaking, touching letter of the 16th, which you so very kindly wrote to me. It is so kind of you to write to us. What a day Tuesday must have been! Welch einen Gang! and yesterday! My grief was so great again yesterday. To talk of her is my greatest consolation! Let us all try to imitate her! My poor dear Uncle, we wish so to be with you, to be of any use to you. You will allow us, in three or four weeks, to go to you for two or three days, quite quietly and alone, to Laeken without any one, without any reception anywhere, to cry with you and to talk with you of Her. It will be a great comfort to us—a silent tribute of respect and love to her—to be able to mingle our tears with yours over her tomb! And the affection of your two devoted children will perhaps be some slight balm. My first impulse was to fly at once to you, but perhaps a few weeks' delay will be better. It will be a great and melancholy satisfaction to us. Daily will you feel more, my poor dear Uncle, the poignancy of your dreadful loss; my heart breaks in thinking of you and the poor dear children. How beautiful it must be to see that your whole country weeps and mourns with you! For this country and for your children you must try to bear up, and feel that in so doing you are doing all she wished. If only we could be of use to you! if I could do anything for dear little Charlotte, whom our blessed Louise talked of so often to me.
May I write to you on Fridays when I used to write to her, as well as on Tuesdays? You need not answer me, and whenever it bores you to write to me, or you have no time, let one of the dear children write to me.