It would be well, however, that it should be done quietly; that it should not be talked about beforehand or get into the papers, which so frequently happens on occasions of this kind, and generally does harm.
Footnote 1: Member of Parliament for Rye 1881-1832, and Ripon 1835-1843, afterwards a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: he became a Peer (Lord Kingsdown) in 1858, having declined a peerage on the present and other occasions.
Footnote 2: Dr Lushington was judge of the Admiralty Court: he had been counsel for, and an executor of, Queen Caroline. He declined the offer now suggested, and the subsequent debates on the Wensleydale Peerage show that the proposed grant would have been ineffectual for its purpose.
Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston.
DIPLOMATIC ARRANGEMENTS
Windsor Castle, 31st January 1851.
The Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter of the 29th, in which he proposes a change in those diplomatic arrangements which she had already sanctioned on his recommendation, and must remark that the reasons which Lord Palmerston adduces in support of his present proposition are in direct contradiction to those by which he supported his former recommendation.3
The principle which the Queen would wish to see acted upon in her diplomatic appointments in general, is, that the good of the service should precede every other consideration, and that the selection of an agent should depend more on his personal qualifications for the particular post for which he is to be selected than on the mere pleasure and convenience of the person to be employed, or of the Minister recommending him.
According to Lord Palmerston's first proposal, Sir H. Seymour was to have gone to St Petersburg, Lord Bloomfield to Berlin, and Sir Richard Pakenham to Lisbon; now Lord Palmerston wishes to send Lord Cowley to St Petersburg.
The Queen has the highest opinion of Lord Cowley's abilities, and agrees with Lord Palmerston in thinking that Russia will, for some time at least, exercise a predominating influence over all European affairs. She would accordingly not object to see that Agent accredited there in whom she herself places the greatest confidence. But according to the same principle, she must insist that the posts of Berlin and Frankfort, which in her opinion are of nearly equal importance, should be filled by men capable of dealing with the complicated and dangerous political questions now in agitation there, and the just appreciation and judicious treatment of which are of the highest importance to the peace of Europe, and therefore to the welfare of England.