The way in which the English Press misunderstands all these things is quite lamentable. The meeting of the Sovereigns had this time a better object than the oppression of the liberties of Nations; that this should not be seen by people who would be the first sufferers of the supremacy of a certain power is very lamentable, but they see everything only according to the colour of their spectacles. Le Flibustive movement at Naples is very shameful, but that poor King has been so calumniated that Garibaldi is the rage of the present moment; Colonel Walker40 has been shot, and Garibaldi, who comes out of that self-same school, is divinised. But it is time I should end. With my best love to dear Albert, I remain ever, my beloved Victoria, your devoted old Uncle,
Leopold R.
Footnote 38: Prince Alfred, who, some time before, had been appointed to the Euryalus, in the course of the summer visited South Africa. After making a tour through Kaffraria, Natal, and the Orange Free State, he returned to Cape Town, where, in September, he laid the foundation stone of the breakwater in Table Bay. In a letter written by the Prince Consort a few weeks earlier to Baron Stockmar, he remarks upon the noteworthy coincidence that almost in the same week in which the elder brother would open the great bridge across the St Lawrence, the younger would lay the foundation stone of the breakwater for the Cape Town Harbour. "What a cheering picture is here," he wrote, "of the progress and expansion of the British race, and of the useful co-operation of the Royal Family in the civilisation which England has developed and advanced" (Life of the Prince Consort, vol. v. p. 88).
Footnote 39: The Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the Prince Regent of Prussia met at Warsaw on 20th October, and held a conference which extended over several days.
Footnote 40: Walker, in the course of one of the Nicaraguan revolutions, had seized the supreme power, and had been recognised as President by the U.S. Government; he was afterwards expelled, and, on venturing to return, was arrested, and shot on the 25th of September 1860.
Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell.
Windsor Castle, 3rd November 1860.
The Queen returns the enclosed draft,41 which she is afraid is not likely to produce the beneficial results which Lord John seems to anticipate.
The expression of our hope, that Rome and Venetia, from their Italian nationality, will soon share in the freedom and good government of the rest of Italy, can only be understood as a declaration on our part that we wish to see them share the annexation to Sardinia, after that of the Two Sicilies shall have been completed.
The declaration at the end after the quotations of the former protests, vague as it is, viz. "That if other Powers interfere England would do as she pleases," means either nothing at all (for England is free to do as she pleases) or it means a threat of war, either an empty threat, or one intended to be followed up when the occasion arises. The first would hardly be dignified for a great Power like England, and as to the second, the Queen for one is not prepared to decide to go to war to ensure the success of the Italian Revolution.