Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria.
TERMS ARRIVED AT
Piccadilly, 30th March 1856.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and in submitting the accompanying letter from Lord Clarendon, he begs to state that he informed Lord Clarendon by the messenger yesterday evening that all he had done and agreed to was approved, and that he might sign the Treaty to-day. It was to be signed at half-past twelve this day.
Viscount Palmerston begs to congratulate your Majesty upon an arrangement which effects a settlement that is satisfactory for the present, and which will probably last for many years to come, of questions full of danger to the best interests of Europe. Greater and more brilliant successes by land and sea might probably have been accomplished by the Allies if the war had continued, but any great and important additional security against future aggressions by Russia could only have been obtained by severing from Russia large portions of her frontier territory, such as Finland, Poland, and Georgia; and although by great military and financial efforts and sacrifices those territories might for a time have been occupied, Russia must have been reduced to the lowest state of internal distress, before her Emperor could have been brought to put his name to a Treaty of Peace finally surrendering his sovereignty over those extensive countries; and to have continued the war long enough for these purposes would have required greater endurance than was possessed by your Majesty's Allies, and might possibly have exhausted the good-will of your Majesty's own subjects....
The Earl of Clarendon to Queen Victoria.
THE TREATY OF PARIS
Paris, 30th March 1856.
Lord Clarendon presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and humbly begs to congratulate your Majesty upon the signature of peace this afternoon. It is not to be doubted that another campaign must have brought glory to your Majesty's arms, and would have enabled England to impose different terms upon Russia, but setting aside the cost and the horrors of war, in themselves evils of the greatest magnitude, we cannot feel sure that victory might not have been purchased too dearly—a continuation of the war would hardly have been possible either with or without France—if we had dragged her on with us it would have been most reluctantly on her part, her finances would have suffered still more, she would have borne us ill-will, would have acted feebly with us, and would on the first favourable occasion have left us in the lurch. If we had continued the war single-handed, France would feel that she had behaved shabbily to us, and would therefore have hated us all the more, and become our enemy sooner than under any other circumstances; a coalition of Europe might then have taken place against England, to which the United States would but too gladly have adhered, and the consequence might have been most serious.