THE PRINCE'S MEMORANDUM
Buckingham Palace, 1st April 1846.
I saw this day Sir R. Peel, and showed him a memorandum, which I had drawn up respecting our conversation of the 30th.
It filled six sheets, and contained, as minutely as I could render it, the whole of the arguments we had gone through. Sir Robert read it through and over again, and, after a long pause, said: "I was not aware when I spoke to your Royal Highness that my words would be taken down, and don't acknowledge that this is a fair representation of my opinion." He was visibly uneasy, and added, if he knew that what he said should be committed to paper, he would speak differently, and give his opinion with all the circumspection and reserve which a Minister ought to employ when he gave responsible advice; but he had in this instance spoken quite unreservedly, like an advocate defending a point in debate, and then he had taken another and tried to carry this as far as it would go, in order to give me an opportunity of judging of the different bearings of the question. He did so often in the Cabinet, when they discussed important questions, and was often asked: "Well, then, you are quite against this measure?" "Not at all, but I want that the counter argument should be gone into to the fullest extent, in order that the Cabinet should not take a one-sided view."
He viewed the existence of such a paper with much uneasiness, as it might appear as if he had left this before going out of office in order to prepossess the Queen against the measures, which her future Minister might propose to her, and so lay secretly the foundation of his fall. The existence of such a paper might cause great embarrassment to the Queen; if she followed the advice of a Minister who proposed measures hostile to the Irish Church, it might be said, she knew what she undertook, for Sir R. Peel had warned her and left on record the serious objections that attached to the measure.
I said that I felt it to be of the greatest importance to possess his views on the question, but that I thought I would not have been justified in keeping a record of our conversation without showing it to him, and asking him whether I had rightly understood him; but if he felt a moment's uneasiness about this memorandum, I would at once destroy it, as I was anxious that nothing should prevent his speaking without the slightest reserve to me in future as he had done heretofore. I felt that these open discussions were of the greatest use to me in my endeavour to investigate the different political questions of the day and to form a conclusive opinion upon them. As Sir Robert did not say a word to dissuade me, I took it as an affirmative, and threw the memorandum into the fire, which, I could see, relieved Sir Robert.
Albert.
Mr Gladstone to Queen Victoria.
13 Carlton House Terrace, 1st April 1846.
Mr William Gladstone presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and prays that he may be honoured with your Majesty's permission to direct that the Park and Tower Guns may be fired forthwith in celebration of the victory which was achieved by your Majesty's forces over the Sikh army in Sobraon on the 10th of February.7