Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston.

Osborne, 30th May 1861.

The Queen returns these papers. She thinks it of great importance that we should be strong in Canada, and thinks an increase in Artillery as important as the sending of two more battalions, as that Arm cannot be supplied at all by the Colony. The Naval forces would, however, require strengthening even more. It is less likely that the remnant of the United States could send expeditions by land to the North while quarrelling with the South, than that they should commit acts of violence at sea.

Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell.

Buckingham Palace, 5th June 1861.

The Queen has perused the accompanying draft to Sir James Hudson. She is of opinion that so important a step as proposals on our part for the solution of the Roman Question, with which we are not directly concerned, and for the solution of which we are for many obvious reasons perhaps the Power possessing the least favourable position, is a subject of such great importance, that it should not be undertaken without the most mature consideration. Has this draft been brought before the Cabinet? The Queen wishes to have their united advice before giving her decision. Her opinion at present is against our volunteering a scheme which will render us responsible for the result of grave complications, from which we have hitherto stood happily quite clear. The Queen wishes these lines to be communicated to the Cabinet.15

Footnote 15: Lord John Russell had written that the withdrawal of the French troops from Rome would probably be followed by tumults and bloodshed; and as both the Roman party and Garibaldi hated the Government of the Pope, and wished to put an end to his temporal power, he suggested that the Pope should be allowed to retain his sovereignty during his lifetime, in a restricted territory and with restricted powers; that Italian troops should occupy the towns and villages outside a limit of five miles from Rome; and that the King of Italy and the Emperor of the French should agree not to recognise the temporal power of any future Pope.

Lord John Russell to Queen Victoria.

DEATH OF CAVOUR

Pembroke Lodge, 6th June 1861.