The Earl of Clarendon to Queen Victoria.
ALTERATIONS SUGGESTED
Taymouth, 21st September 1856.
Lord Clarendon presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and humbly ventures to express his opinion that the Empress might think the tone of your Majesty's letter rather too severe. It is by no means severe, but perfectly just and true as regards the conduct of Russia and France, and on that very account it might wound the amour-propre of the Emperor.
Lord Clarendon ventures to suggest the omission of the second sentence beginning by "il est impossible," and of the parenthesis at the bottom of the second page.50 In the concluding sentence it might perhaps be better to say "la France et l'Angleterre" instead of "nous," which would possibly be taken as an announcement of separate action. Your Majesty might perhaps think it right to add after the last words "tels dangers"—"ces dangers seront écartés à l'instant que la France s'unira à nous pour tenir un langage ferme à la Russie qui tâche de nous désunir et il ne faut pas qu'elle y réussisse."51
Footnote 50: I.e. the passage from "acte auquel" to "notre insu."
Footnote 51: The Prince wrote in reply to this letter: "The draft of letter to the Empress of the French has been altered in every particular as you suggest, and I will send you a corrected copy of it by to-morrow." See post, [p. 213], note 54.
Queen Victoria to the Duke of Cambridge.
Balmoral, 22nd September 1856.
My dear George,—I waited to thank you for your letter of the 17th till I had received Mary's from Lord Clarendon, which I did yesterday morning, and which I now return to you. It is admirably written, and does dear Mary the greatest credit; she puts it on the right ground, viz. that of the Protestant feeling which should always actuate our family, and to this we now must keep. It effectually closes, however, the door to all Catholic proposals—whether from Kings or Princes, which makes matters easier.