Viscount Palmerston would, moreover, beg to submit that the conflict between Austria and Prussia can scarcely be said to have turned upon principles of Government so much as upon a struggle for political ascendency in Germany. At Berlin, at Dresden, and in Baden the Prussian Government has very properly no doubt employed military force to reestablish order; and in regard to the affairs of Hesse, the ground taken by Prussia was not so much a constitutional as a military one, and the objection which she made to the entrance of the troops of the Diet was that those troops might become hostile, and that they ought not, therefore, to occupy a central position in the line of military defence of Prussia.
The remark which your Majesty makes as to unanimity being required for certain purposes by the Diet regulations is no doubt very just, and that circumstance certainly shows that the free Conference which is about to be held is a better constructed body for planning a new arrangement of a central organ.49
Footnote 49: War was staved off by the Conference; but the relative predominance of Prussia and Austria in Germany was left undecided for some years to come.
Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
STATE OF THE CONTINENT
Windsor Castle, 22nd November 1850.
My dearest Uncle,—Accept my best thanks for your kind letter of the 17th, and the dear little English one from dear little Charlotte, which is so nicely written, and shows such an amiable disposition. I send her to-day a little heart for the hair of our blessed Angel, which I hope she will often wear. Our girls have all got one. I have written to the dear child. You should have the dear children as much with you as possible; I am sure it would be so good and useful for you and them. Children ought to have great confidence in their parents, in order for them to have any influence over them.
Yesterday Vicky was ten years old. It seems a dream. If she lives, in eight years more she may be married! She is a very clever child, and I must say very much improved.
The state of the Continent is deplorable; the folly of Austria and the giving way of Prussia are lamentable. Our influence on the Continent is null.... Add to this, we are between two fires in this country: a furious Protestant feeling and an enraged Catholic feeling in Ireland. I believe that Austria fans the flame at Rome, and that the whole movement on the Continent is anti-Constitutional, anti-Protestant, and anti-English; and this is so complicated, and we have (thanks to Lord Palmerston) contrived to quarrel so happily, separately with each, that I do not know how we are to stand against it all!