The Queen hopes Lord Derby will not consider that she intends, by this letter, unduly to influence his free consideration and decision as to the advice he may think it his duty to offer, but merely to guard against his being taken by surprise, and to prevent, if possible, an unseemly public difference between herself and Lord Stanley. She is impelled to the apprehension that such may arise from the manner in which, since the first transfer of the Indian Government to the Crown, every act of Lord Stanley has uniformly tended to place the Queen in a position which would render her helpless and powerless in resisting a scheme which certain persons, imbued with the old Indian traditions, would appear to wish to force upon the Crown.
The Queen does not expect an answer to this letter from Lord Derby, and asks him to treat it as strictly confidential.
The Queen sees that Lord Stanley means to make a statement on Monday on the Indian Finances. She trusts that there will be nothing said in that statement to prejudge the Army Question.
Decipher from Lord Cowley.
Paris, 6th February 1859.
(1 a.m. Received 4 a.m.)
A great change for the better. The Queen's letter has produced an excellent effect, as also the Debates in Parliament.11 The Emperor has expressed himself ready to subscribe to every word of Lord Derby's speech.
Footnote 11: Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on the 3rd; the ensuing debates, and especially the speeches of the Liberal leaders, showed that, however much the English nation, as a whole, might sympathise with Italian aspirations for the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy, they would regard unfavourably a war commenced in defiance of Treaty obligations.
The Earl of Derby to Queen Victoria.
THE INDIAN ARMY
St James's Square, 6th February 1859.