Private.
Hatfield House, Hatfield, Herts: August 15, 1885.
My dear Randolph,—I had no intention of taking any decision out of your hands, and I think in attributing it to me you do not put fairly the position in which I was placed. The Queen’s desire for privacy was very natural. The question she was asking about her son might have had an unfavourable answer: and then she would naturally wish that as few should know it as possible. I could not, therefore, do otherwise than I did—send the message, and urge her to communicate it to you as soon as I knew it could be done satisfactorily. It would not have been honourable to communicate it before. Perhaps I might, if I had thought of it, have sent the cypher to Ponsonby—but that would hardly have been civil; and it did not occur to me that you would take this objection. As a matter of fact I did not communicate with the Viceroy otherwise than by transmitting that which was sent to me. But if I had done so I should not have done anything unusual. Lord Beaconsfield used to do it occasionally: and Lord Dufferin wrote to me and asked me to correspond with him. The Viceroy is nominated by the Prime Minister, not by the Secretary of State. I only say this because I am concerned to show that I have not behaved unfairly to you, or taken anything out of your hand. But I do not hold to this power of corresponding either by letter or wire with the Viceroy: and if you really feel that ‘you will never know what communications are passing between the Queen, the Prime Minister, and the Viceroy,’ I am quite ready to give up for myself the right of communicating with him.
Of course, you must take what course you think right. I should be sorry if, out of mere suspicion of me, you took a step which will tend to break up the party at a critical time: and still more that you should do it on a matter which can hardly fail to make the Queen’s name and actions matter of public controversy. But, at all events, before you take any definite step I trust you will talk to me about it. I shall be going through town on Tuesday to Osborne. If you are still there, would you come to me at two o’clock?
Yours very truly,
Salisbury.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.
2 Connaught Place, W.: August 16.
Dear Lord Salisbury,—I feel I cannot persist easily in urging my view upon you after your letter received this morning, though it does appear to me that you have not allowed yourself to appreciate with perfect justice the consideration which I tried to convey to you. It can be no satisfaction to me to be the means of depriving Lord Dufferin of the advantage, instruction and pleasure which correspondence direct with you cannot fail to afford him, and I do not quite understand how you can think me capable of such a purpose.
Further, I am much distressed that you should suppose that the step which I was anxious to take (and which I still firmly believe would be for the advantage of all concerned) could be animated by so unworthy a motive as ‘suspicion of you.’
My argument was that, viewing all the surrounding circumstances together, the peculiar occurrence about which I wrote had seriously, if not irreparably, impaired my power of being useful to your Government.