The Queen returns the enclosed draft. She has written upon it, in pencil, a passage which she thinks ought to be added, if the draft--though civil--is not to be a mere refusal to do anything for Austria, and a recommendation that whatever the Italians ask for ought to be given, for which a mediation is hardly necessary.[26] The Queen thinks it most important that we should try to mediate and put a stop to the war, and equally important that the boundary which is to be settled should be such a one as to make a recurrence of hostilities unlikely. The Queen has only further to remark that Lord Palmerston speaks in the beginning of the letter only of the Cabinet, and adverts nowhere to the proposition having been submitted to her.
[Footnote 26: War was now raging in Lombardy between the Austrians under Marshal Radetzky and the Piedmontese under the King of Sardinia.]
Lord John Russell presents his humble duty, and thanks your Majesty for the perusal of this interesting letter.
An Emperor with a rational Constitution might be a fair termination of the French follies; but Louis Napoleon, with the Communists, will probably destroy the last chance of order and tranquillity. A despotism must be the end.
The Queen has received Lord Palmerston's letter explaining his views as to the reparation we may be entitled to receive from the Spanish Government. She considers them as quite fair, but does not wish to have Sir H. Bulwer again as her Minister at Madrid, even if it should be necessary that he should repair there in order to be received by the Queen of Spain. It would not be consulting the permanent interests of this country to entrust that mission again to Sir H. Bulwer, after all that has passed. When the Queen considers the position we had in Spain, and what it ought to have been after the constitution of the French Republic when we had no rival to fight and ought to have enjoyed the entire confidence and friendship of Spain, and compares this to the state into which our relations with that country have been brought, she cannot help being struck how much matters must have been mismanaged.
The Queen sends the enclosed draft,[27] and asks whether this note is what Lord John directed Lord Palmerston to send to Lisbon as a caution to Sir H. Seymour not to mix himself up with party intrigues to upset a particular Ministry?[28] ...