Buckingham Palace, 12th June 1859.
The Queen writes to inform Lord Derby that after a fruitless attempt on the part of Lord Granville to form a Government comprising Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, she has now charged Lord Palmerston with the task, which she trusts may prove more successful....
Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria.
94 Piccadilly, 12th June 1859.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to report that he has been to Pembroke Lodge, and has had a satisfactory conversation with Lord John Russell, who has agreed to be a Member of the Government without any suggestion that Viscount Palmerston should leave the House of Commons; but Viscount Palmerston is sorry to say that Lord John Russell laid claim to the Foreign Office in a manner which rendered it impossible for Viscount Palmerston to decline to submit his name to your Majesty for that post when the List of the new Government shall be made out for your Majesty's consideration and approval....
Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston.
13th June 1859.
Lord Clarendon has just left the Queen. She had a long and full conversation with him. Nothing could be more friendly than his language, and he expressed himself ready to do anything for the Queen's service. But he positively declines entering the Cabinet or taking any other office. He says, as Foreign Secretary, he should be ready to join the Government should there be a vacancy; but that he has never directed his attention much to general politics, and his taking any other office, after having held the Foreign Seals during a long and important time, would be of no use to the Government, and would only injure himself. The Queen told him that he might have any office almost (naming several of those which Lord Palmerston discussed with her), but she could not urge nor press him to do what he felt would injure him, and indeed she found him quite determined in his purpose.
His absence from the Cabinet the Queen sincerely deplores, and she knows that Lord Palmerston will feel it a serious loss.